Coronavirus Disease 2019 and Children What Pediatric Health Care Clinicians Need to Know [jamanetwork.com]

By Sonja A. Rasmussen, MD, MS; Lindsay A Thompson, MD, MS, JAMA Pediatrics, April 3, 2020  The emergence of a coronavirus illness not previously seen in humans, now called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), has captured the attention of the US and the world. The virus was first identified in Wuhan, China, after an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause was identified in December 2019, with most early cases reporting exposure to a live animal market. On December 31, 2019, China reported the outbreak to the World Health Organization, and shortly thereafter, the responsible pathogen was identified as a novel coronavirus, which is called SARS-CoV-2 because of its sequence similarity to the virus causing severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The situation of COVID-19 is evolving rapidly with increasing numbers of cases and involved countries. On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, and on March 11, 2020, the outbreak was declared a pandemic. As of March 25, 2020, more than 425 000 cases have been confirmed globally in 170 countries and regions, including more than 55 000 cases in the United States.

[Please click here to read the rest of this article.]