Back in March, billionaire Elon Musk said in a tweet that children are “essentially immune” to the coronavirus. In reality, children might be a little less vulnerable to coronavirus than adults because they don’t go to work, grocery shopping, or go out for other purposes in lockdown. But children can also catch the COVID-19 virus. A 3-year-old kid named Salaar Sherzad in Karachi was recently diagnosed with coronavirus.
3-year-old kid Salaar Sherzad living in isolation
Salaar Sherzad’s mother Samiah Ejaz said in a Facebook post that her 3-year-old kid tested positive for coronavirus around mid-April. He is currently admitted to the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi, where he is spending his days in isolation. That’s hard for a 3-year-old child as well as his family members.
Samiah Ejaz said she shared the video of Salaar Sherzad “for precious prayers and for those ppl who are saying covid-19 is just a drama.” She wanted to let people know that the COVID-19 pandemic is real. A lot of people believe it’s fake, thanks to the bombardment of misinformation and conspiracy theories on social media.
The child was tested again after 15 days, and was still found coronavirus positive. Ejaz noted that her son had developed only mild symptoms such as fever and fatigue.
Coronavirus and children
Scientists have said that most children develop only mild symptoms. However, many parents are concerned about the effect of coronavirus on their children. And they have every reason to be so. A large number of children have lost their lives battling the COVID-19 all over the world. The amount of infection in children is the same as in adults, according to Andrew Pollard of the University of Oxford.
Earlier this week, the New York Health Department said 64 children were hospitalized with a mysterious illness called “Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome (PMSIS) potentially associated with COVID-19.” All the kids tested positive for coronavirus, and suffered from inflammation of blood vessels. The virus appears to be affecting children in a variety of different ways, many of which we might not be familiar with yet.
So far, more than 3.7 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. At least 2,63,000 people have died. The actual number of infections and deaths could be significantly higher because of the lack of sufficient testing. Some countries have also been accused of hiding the actual data on the coronavirus outbreak within their borders.
