Yes, Teens can get Long-COVID and other post-viral syndromes

Because children didn’t get hit with acute COVID infections as hard as adults or older people, when Long-COVID started to show up, it was assumed we wouldn’t get it. But that was not correct. In fact, you don’t even have to have tested positive for COVID to get long COVID.

Long COVID is just the most recent in a long line of viral illnesses that cause post-viral syndromes. This has been well-documented for some time. Mononucleosis, Cytomegalovirus, Influenza, Lyme, SARS and more can cause long forms of illness that can affect teens as well as adults. The umbrella term for these long-term illnesses is ME/CFS — Myalgic Encephalitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; although physicians are now starting to call the condition Infection-Associated Chronic Conditions (IACCs). It can be scary to read about at first, but reading the article below helped my family realize what was going on with me and start finding help.

It’s important to know that people do recover and that in particular, for long COVID, it takes about 3 years for adolescents to move through it.

Myalgic Encephalitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Diagnosis & Treatment in Young People; A Primer. This article is from 2017 Frontiers in Pediatrics by Johns Hopkins Professor Peter Rowe and Colleagues and is a great place to start.

Post-COVID Condition in Children and Adolescents: An Emerging Problem. Front Pediatr. 2022 May 11;10:894204. doi: 10.3389/