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Yale New Haven Hospital doctors are “monitoring closely” three pediatric patients for an inflammatory syndrome that’s been linked to the respiratory illness COVID-19.
Photo: Peter Hvizdak / Hearst Connecticut MediaYale New Haven Hospital doctors are “monitoring closely” three pediatric patients for an inflammatory syndrome that’s been linked to the respiratory illness COVID-19.
Yale New Haven Hospital doctors are “monitoring closely” three pediatric patients for an inflammatory syndrome that’s been linked to the respiratory illness COVID-19.
Yale New Haven Hospital doctors are “monitoring closely” three pediatric patients for an inflammatory syndrome that’s been linked to the respiratory illness COVID-19.
NEW HAVEN — Three pediatric patients at Yale New Haven Hospital have been diagnosed with the state’s first cases of a rare inflammatory syndrome associated with the coronavirus that has been linked to at least three children’s deaths in New York.
Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday he was alerted to the cases by Dr. Albert Ko, department chairman and professor of epidemiology at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Lamont said he believes the children are “doing OK.”
“It seems to impact young people anywhere from 3 months to 13 or 15 years,” Lamont said during his daily media briefing. “It results in a severe inflammation of some of the glands, and so it’s something we’re really concerned about. I think right now it’s a very, very tiny risk of infection.”
Ko and the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital confirmed the three cases on Monday evening. According to a statement issued by Yale, the three cases have been reported to the state Department of Public Health.
“Unfortunately, this disease carries features of toxic shock syndrome and elements of Kawasaki disease and strikes school-aged children. While these cases are exceptionally rare, given our proximity to New York where there have been a significant number reported, we have been watching their experience closely,” Clifford Bogue, physician-in-chief of YNHCH, said in a news release. “We are working diligently with local and state health officials to address this issue and strongly recommend that children who may be suffering from symptoms seek early referrals to pediatric infectious disease specialists, rheumatologists or cardiologists.”
Symptoms include a persistent fever, rash as well as gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting and diarrhea. Patients can also suffer from cardiac inflammation.
Lamont said these cases — in Connecticut and elsewhere — mean any plans to reopen should proceed with caution.
“I’ll tell you one thing, to me as I thought about it, you know a lot of people say, ‘let’s open the door, let young people get a little infected, we’ll get up to the herd immunity and we’ll get through this,’” Lamont said. “And we realize every week that we don’t know everything about this virus. We may have six months of experience with it, but we don’t know what some of the medium-term and longer term effects can be, and that’s why we have to be so careful.”
The inflammatory syndrome has popped up throughout the country, most notably in New York, where at least three children have died from the illness. During his Monday news conference, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the state is monitoring 93 cases of the inflammatory illness in young children.
Cuomo said the condition contradicts the early reports that COVID-19 didn’t affect children. He said this developing situation further emphasized that leaders need to be smart when reopening parts of the state.
“No one’s going to protect your children’s health but you,” Cuomo said. “This is about keeping yourself smart, keeping yourself healthy and keeping your family healthy.”
According to Cuomo, doctors in New York said most of the children are having symptoms of the syndrome four to six weeks after being exposed to COVID-19.
During his afternoon media briefing, President Donald Trump said, “it’s been on the radar for weeks” and officials are “studying that very closely.”
“We’ve seen this for quite a while,” Trump said. “It’s been very rare, but we’re looking at it very closely.”
Even before the illness appeared in Connecticut, doctors and families were on the lookout for possible incidents in the state, said Dr. Beth Emerson, medical director of the Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital emergency department.
“I think it’s helpful for families to know this syndrome different than COVID itself,” Emerson said Monday.
While COVID-19 in adults typically presents with a fever, dry cough, trouble breathing and other symptoms, the version affecting children includes a rash, redness in the eyes and swelling in the hands and feet.
“We don’t really have a sense yet of what the prevalence of this is,” Emerson said. “Once we have a sense of how common this might be, we’ll have a better idea of how to look for it.”
Other hospitals and health systems in the area are also monitoring the syndrome, including one with a foot in New York. Nuvance Health includes Danbury, New Milford, Norwalk and Sharon hospitals in Connecticut, but also Northern Dutchess Hospital, Putnam Hospital Center and Vassar Brothers Medical Center in New York.
All the hospitals are treating pediatric patients in their emergency departments, said Nuvance spokeswoman Amy Forni. “At this time, we don’t have information available about confirmed cases of this syndrome presenting to the (emergency departments),” she said.
However, the hospitals are not admitting pediatric cases, and are working with regional children’s hospitals for any young patients requiring hospitalization.
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