Children have become the overlooked victims of the coronavirus crisis.
Blessedly, they are less badly affected by the virus.
But they have paid an enormous price being locked out of school in lockdown.
Now official figures suggest of the 500,000 children who have had the illness, around 74,000 have had Long Covid.
They may not display the classic symptoms experienced by adults, but, as we reveal today, a large number of our children are at risk from life-changing long term effects.
Many are suffering already, but many thousands more face the prospect of serious illness if greater attention is not given to their plight urgently.
As the testimony of parents shows, some doctors are brushing off their worries, dismissing signs of infection – including headaches, fatigue and brain fog – as “anxiety” or attention-seeking mimickry of symptoms they’ve heard adults speak of.
This has to stop and the Government’s assurances that kids don’t get seriously ill has to be replaced with greater efforts to research, treat and prevent their suffering.
Parents like Nichola Careless, who has seen 12-year-old son Mani left reliant on a wheelchair have been left in limbo.
Mum Charlie Mountford-Hill says her five “are not the same children since they got sick”.
As Sammie Macfarland, founder of campaign Long Covid Kids, hauntingly says: “It’s Russian roulette whether children will get long Covid.”
There’s currently no vaccine for children, but the Government needs quickly to give priority to finding out whether there should be one.
What we do for our kids now sends a message to the future about how we cared for them.
Let’s hope that message isn’t: We let you down.
