key: cord-1010157-jk6lv3ke
authors: Pecoraro, Luca; Dalle Carbonare, Luca; De Franceschi, Lucia; Piacentini, Giorgio; Pietrobelli, Angelo
title: The psycho‐physical impact that COVID‐19 has on children must not be underestimated
date: 2020-05-13
journal: Acta Paediatr
DOI: 10.1111/apa.15347
sha: 24947dfd8babb1fd28871bdaccca587314a3b466
doc_id: 1010157
cord_uid: jk6lv3ke

Italy has been one of the European countries that has been most affected by the COVID‐19 pandemic. By 16 April 2020, 159,107 Italian residents had tested positive for COVID‐19 and these included 1,123 children, up to nine years of age (0.7%) and 1,804 adolescents, aged between 10 and 19 years old (1.1%) (1). These data were in line with the case studies reported for the Chinese population, where the respective percentage (proportion) was 0.9% and 1.2% respectively (2). A five‐year‐old Italian child, who had been affected by many previous and unspecified pathologies, died after testing positive for COVID‐19 infection (1). The lower vulnerability of the paediatric population to COVID‐19 seems evident.

paediatric population to COVID-19 seems evident.

The reasons for this evidence seem to be due to both external factors and factors related to the children's immune systems. The external factors include that before the lockdown children were less likely than adults to visit certain places that could have facilitated the spread of the virus, such as

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved train stations and airports. They also seem to show an intrinsic resistance to COVID-19 and three explanations have been suggested for this. First and foremost is that children demonstrate greater expression of the innate immune response, which is more effective against this virus than in adults. The 

This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved were quarantined during epidemic or pandemics events than those whose movements were not restricted (7).

Interventions to avoid the risk of physical and psychological repercussions in paediatric age are possible and can take place on three different levels. The first is to encourage parents to be role models of optimal psychophysical health and make sure they understand the first signs of psychological and physical repercussions in their children. Secondly, psychologists can play a very important role, as they can support parents to alleviate the tensions created by this unique situation. Most children and adolescents have never experienced a pandemic, which has been continually mentioned by the mass media and social networks and required such a strict lockdown. The third is that the role of teachers and social policies must not be forgotten. They need to promote motivational messages that create optimal psycho-physical health and encourage children to engage in physical activity, maintain a balanced diet, establish regular sleep-wake rhythms and observe adequate personal hygiene. In other words, the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak does not just have infectious disease repercussions for paediatric patients. It also has psycho-physical impacts (6) and these must not to be underestimated.

Epidemia COVID-19

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