Children and adolescents who are reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 face a significantly higher risk of developing long COVID, according to a large, multi-institutional study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 

The study, which analyzed electronic health record data from 40 children’s hospitals and health systems across the United States, found that young patients who experienced a second confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection during the omicron period were more than twice as likely to receive a clinician-documented diagnosis of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC) as those in the same calendar period after a first infection. 

“This work comes out of the NIH-funded RECOVER Initiative, which was established to understand the long-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection,” said David Liebovitz, MD, professor of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine, and a co-author of the study. “Earlier work helped define long COVID in children after a first infection, but once omicron became dominant and reinfections became routine, a pressing clinical question emerged: does getting COVID a second time carry its own distinct risk of long COVID, or does prior infection confer meaningful protection? Existing pediatric evidence was thin, mostly based on small survey-based studies with self-reported outcomes and limited ability to control for confounders.”

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