Will Grogan stared blankly at his ninth grade biology classwork. It was material he had mastered the day before, but it looked utterly unfamiliar. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he blurted. His teacher and classmates reminded him how adeptly he’d answered questions about the topic during the previous class. “I’ve never seen this before,” he insisted, becoming so distressed that the teacher excused him to visit the school nurse. The episode, earlier this year, was one of numerous cognitive mix-ups that plagued Will, 15, after he contracted the coronavirus in October, along with issues like fatigue and severe leg pain. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times As young people across the country prepare to return to school, many are struggling to recover from lingering post-COVID neurological, physical or psychiatric symptoms. Often called “long COVID,” the symptoms and their duration vary, as does the severity. Studies estimate long COVID may affect between 10% and 30% of adults infected with the coronavirus. Estimates from the handful of studies of children so far range widely. At an April congressional hearing, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, cited one study suggesting that between 11% and 15% of infected youths might “end up with this long-term consequence, which can be pretty devastating in terms of things like school performance.” The challenges facing young patients come as pediatric COVID-19 cases rise sharply, driven by the highly contagious delta variant and the fact that well under half of 12- to 17-year-olds are fully vaccinated and children under 12 are still ineligible for vaccines. Doctors say even youths with mild or asymptomatic initial infections may experience long COVID: confounding, sometimes debilitating issues that disrupt their schooling, sleep, extracurricular activities and other aspects of life. “The potential impact is huge,” said Dr. Avindra Nath, chief of infections of the nervous system at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. “I mean, they’re in their formative years. Once you start falling behind, it’s very hard because the kids lose their own self-confidence too. It’s a downward spiral.”https://wakelet.com/@Venom2fullmovieonlineHD https://wakelet.com/wake/vspJ90kEH7HDbxV5mZqqc https://wakelet.com/wake/GWHZcvC3V8-BHmB3Uxjp3 https://wakelet.com/wake/M_jJB4Vmex4op_CJHAdYP https://wakelet.com/wake/aU31y4jaOBEQeJCyNUUDg https://wakelet.com/wake/OI9VF7F5xSH6UpOCCQqsS https://wakelet.com/wake/1EYPQqWl-7U04sulhK5Y9 https://wakelet.com/wake/JIlqRlyy-lxgqC1nfuizD https://wakelet.com/wake/-2sHA8bTvlL-EB850Z9p5 https://wakelet.com/wake/nwgIxtcmYELJCRzh8Y3iJ https://wakelet.com/wake/i_Lm7_HbLQsW-jZ_LuJ4D https://wakelet.com/wake/PWw8Iy7M2-bGVBqS56CLB https://wakelet.com/wake/P1gfL5vtS4-WlMIYrIFV2 https://wakelet.com/wake/LJxF4UirlNtK5gnkULi7z https://wakelet.com/wake/y9NbgAttXE4Rt7-8ksemm https://wakelet.com/wake/yQt8u5QIlruzUFY8gv1JG https://wakelet.com/wake/QmlEjMVrLIcXzpKYctIxK https://wakelet.com/wake/WKU_vzaIISKHMkMv6ChJI https://wakelet.com/wake/Y72grV20xweRnx8OIFgrt https://wakelet.com/wake/BWoVZgvr3utpyaD6pZGah https://wakelet.com/wake/Xx-uk3WqmwP3YcIA2Wh79 https://wakelet.com/wake/lwU1QQmRD4N3H7-ssoxs7 https://wakelet.com/wake/3fgcGMxvdTe7K414FuvYp https://wakelet.com/wake/VpwIZjzh10cgXPP0puFV4 https://wakelet.com/wake/nhb4sO-67BSGocAAUM65u https://wakelet.com/wake/qelJ0OiVzU72eKN3AFYL1 https://wakelet.com/wake/b0SH0veJlLG4HGF2W3XLa https://wakelet.com/wake/Xdhj6cUXpTmI1nwDWevNw https://wakelet.com/wake/zMSe_Y_i1fyCfHePDNfth https://wakelet.com/wake/7C20V7Nbu2FkjzxReyMrV https://wakelet.com/wake/8Lx1CsKkC8wvz8N-OeBHz https://wakelet.com/wake/459kRDKI6o5GwzjNeHnSf https://wakelet.com/wake/3gWafxylEx3KomECsniBx https://wakelet.com/wake/7gC45jNUH7Q_KVyN1tb5D https://wakelet.com/wake/Uis1GehKxY4MzKky3pF0X https://wakelet.com/wake/w7k_T1lrdpHwySaQeQf6D https://wakelet.com/wake/2hDQuKsAmYHCIX16IwUA- https://wakelet.com/wake/bJo8yKYZjBXnsCGzmO-UB https://wakelet.com/wake/pmq88RXa9cuK70wLjHTej https://wakelet.com/wake/GV7nUGL4F_lvThzmkqrYh https://wakelet.com/wake/nOxtyF_HZ1R3OaXYOJsWM https://wakelet.com/wake/oNmeyuOZn0cF-U-G_MDX9 https://wakelet.com/wake/Rohf1qH7wF4yg5Oht5PHN https://wakelet.com/wake/ufiy7bp6WATxdPWiUYHma https://wakelet.com/wake/gp8plJrobe0FgCLYWji6p https://wakelet.com/wake/U7YLAWoxLLUrVX8QsbMbo https://wakelet.com/wake/ys2HjkkD_1kTBFzBJMRYD https://wakelet.com/wake/XlISbggviencYiTuIK_Az https://wakelet.com/wake/FlFhTepA5IPmFV_CfowNH https://wakelet.com/wake/RiNSeIBEhwCJ9d7L1QK4Y https://wakelet.com/wake/AeNHYXb02CFDKUXN2XFAR Will, an Eagle Scout, a talented tennis player and a highly motivated student who loves studying languages so much that he takes both French and Arabic, said he used to feel “taking naps is a waste of sunlight.” But COVID made him so fatigued that he could barely leave his bed for 35 days, and he was so dizzy that he had to sit to keep from fainting in the shower. When he returned to his Dallas high school classes, brain fog caused him to see “numbers floating off the page” in math, to forget to turn in a history paper on Japanese Samurai he’d written days earlier and to insert fragments of French into an English assignment. “I handed it to my teacher, and she was like ‘Will, is this your scratch notes?’” said Will, adding that he worried: “Am I going to be able to be a good student ever again? Because this is really scary.” ‘We don’t have any sort of magic treatment’ Nearly 4.2 million young people in the United States have had COVID-19, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Relatively small percentages have been hospitalized for initial infections or developed a condition called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) that can emerge several weeks later. Doctors expect considerably more will experience long COVID. At Boston Children’s Hospital, where a program draws long COVID patients from across the country, “we’re seeing things like fatigue, headaches, brain fog, memory and concentration difficulties, sleep disturbances, ongoing change in smell and taste,” said Dr. Molly Wilson-Murphy, a neuroinfectious diseases specialist there. She said most patients were “kids who had COVID and weren’t hospitalized, recovered at home, and then they have symptoms that just never go away — or they seem to get totally better and then a couple of weeks or a month or so after, they develop symptoms.” Dr. Amanda Morrow, co-director of the pediatric post-COVID-19 clinic at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, said getting treatment early might help recovery. Post-COVID clinics find they need multiple specialists and approaches including exercise, cognitive behavioral therapy, sleep modification and medication for issues such as respiratory and gastrointestinal problems.