The worlds biggest study of post acute #COVID19 symptoms in children is out as a pre-print - the CLoCK study!
Fortunately results are very reassuring regarding symptom frequency and impact
Some important lessons, let's take a look
1/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58410584 …
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The study compared people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 to those who tested negative They looked at symptoms at the time of testing, and then 3 months later The differences are then presumably due to one group having covid They surveyed children aged 11 - 17 2/
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What did they find? At time of testing, 35% of test positives had symptoms compared to only 8% of test negatives Astoundingly, 3 months later 67% of test positives had any symptoms, and *53% of test negatives* had symptoms 3/
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This is why studies of persistent symptoms after covid which don't have a control group are almost completely useless Over HALF of children who didn't have SARS-CoV-2 had symptoms 3 months later (despite only 8% having symptoms at baseline!) These symptoms are SO common 4/
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Replying to @apsmunro
I agree that the study is biased and it's hard to draw causal conclusions, but this tweet seems pretty misleading. An absolute increase of shortness of breath for 3 months of 13%, for example, would be pretty massive in these age groups!
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I mean, yes these symptoms are common, but these absolute increases are HUGE. 12% higher anosmia? an extra 13% experiencing SoB? Probably an overestimate, but I don't see why having a high baseline would make that less worryingpic.twitter.com/i8HLTRiKse
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What I'm wondering about: if you assume the "positive group" is an overestimate due to small percentage response and ppl more likely to respond when experiencing symptoms, why wouldn't the control group have the same overestimate? Surely the same caveats apply to them?
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Potentially. The issue is that it's an unknown bias with unknown impacts - could run in either direction, we can't assume it's non-differential
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Agreed. But then again, we can't assume it's differential either... Either way, I don't really see the "reassuring outcome" of this study. Unless there is in fact a large differential bias. And like you said: that's an unknown for now.
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