Over 10% of kids with COVID-related brain disease died: Japan survey

An incredibly low number.

4 children died and it might not even be due to Covid but influenza?

> Development of acute encephalopathy among children is not limited to COVID-infection and is also known to afflict those who have contracted influenza.

Peculiar how those posters who were so certain the vaccines were causing all kinds of illnesses and deaths, with little or no evidence, are now questioning the lack of information surrounding these children’s deaths.

@Bob Fosse

The severe reactions to the vaccines are well documented. This story deals with acute encephalopathy. A classmate of our eldest daughter died in kindergarten from acute encephalopathy caused by a high fever from influenza.

Influenza did not 'mysteriously' dissappear from the Planet. Lockdowns, Social Distancing and cessation on international travel were the major contribution to that - and that had already been documented in the Summer of 2020, well before the conspiracy theorists could blame the vaccines for all and eberything.

Bronco, it's very clear what you're implying with little sympathy for the parents of these children. The numbers may be small but it's very tiring that you continue to deny Covid and /or any of its effects on society.

Every story related to Covid - yes it does exist, yes it does kill some - still brings out the tired old conspiracy theorists and wannabe medical professionals.

Time to drop the conspiracy nonsense and take up a hobby or sport, guys. Medicine and science is not your thing.

Proxy,it not low if it somebody children, nobody forcing you to anything,I still in the COVID protocol

An incredibly low number.

Not at all, not for their families nor for the medical professionals that consider those deaths completely unnecessary and preventable.

If Covid-19 started in January 2020, why wasn't it until a full 2 years later that this mystery illness started appearing.

Becasue the strains are different, because the incidence rates in children changed abruptly after measures were relaxed, because the illness appearing is different from it being detected. What exactly is your argument?

The professionals that best know about disease epidemiology clearly found a link between the infection and the disease, pretending they are just making up stuff and that something else must be the cause is just showing a deep antiscientific bias, specially without any evidence to support that personal belief.

4 children died and it might not even be due to Covid but influenza?

No, the children died from a complication after developing covid, it is just that this complication has already been correlated with viral respiratory diseases like influenza before, so it is not exactly unexpected for covid patients to also present it. It is like saying "patients died of blood loss after being shot, and that this cause of death is not only related to bullet wounds but also those produced by blades", nobody can interpret this sentence to mean the deaths may not have been produced by being shot.

The severe reactions to the vaccines are well documented.

Precisely, and since this demonstrate them to be orders of magnitude less frequent than the complications from the infection it makes no sense to ignore the obvious frequent cause of them and pretend the much less likely reason must be the cause, precisely because viral infections like influenza have been correlated with encephalitis is why there is no surprise in the same complications happening to covid patients.

Any deaths especially due to covid are tragic.

How long will it be before the pain comes to pass for those involved?

Proxy - An incredibly low number

It obviously wasn’t one of your kids.

These complications show just how serious and dangerous covid really is. It’s baffling as to why so many foolish people still downplay the seriousness of this virus. There are still some who believe it’s all a hoax created my the pharmaceutical companies. Covid is responsible for more than one million deaths worldwide. A pharmaceutical hoax? An incredibly low number? I think not!

But that said ... come on, guys, don't you think this is over-the-top media alarmism?

So reporting something with precise numbers is alarmism for you? the headline clearly says the percentage comes from the patients with brain disease, which is known to be a rare occurrence. Precisely because this is an expected fatality rate between those patients is why this can't rationally be considered alarmist.

Qualifying as fear mongering something that is well described and supported by evidence is just a personal bias. Covid can be serious and cause death even for children, if the reports are precise then definitely they can be said to show how serious and dangerous the disease is, not more not less.

The people concerned about the sudden unexplained increase in acute encephalopathy that started a full 2 years after Covid infections were declared.

You forgot to add "and that believe the best professionals that have already studied the problem and correlated it with covid as expected must be wrong just because"

The experts already explained the obvious cause, not believing them is a terribly bad excuse to be looking for other causes, specially because this depends on ignoring clear evidence that points out to covid and just believing otherwise without any evidence whatsoever.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people and it is particularly sad when it happens to a child. Four is a very small number and as tragic as it is for those 4 families as it is significantly lower than deaths from other viral infections that humans have learned to live with, people need to learn to live with that number.

Fear is a choice. I chose not to live in fear and I feel sorry for the kids of parents who are living in fear.

not to underplay the trauma and loss to sufferers and their familes/loved ones... but the headline seems rather to have been written to sensationalize this... for what ends, I don't know. actually '4 kids died in 2 years' and some others have ongoiing problems. my guess is that more kids die from falling out of their apartment windows/balconies. and various other causes.... senile people driving onto pavements (sidewalks), sundry illnesses, family violence and/or neglect, kids let locked in closed cars in Summer.....

 as it is significantly lower than deaths from other viral infections that humans have learned to live with, people need to learn to live with that number.

The huge difference is that life changing measures to avoid precisely this disease have been in place and still the deaths happened, compare it with the number of deaths on children caused by influenza on the same period and you will see why health care professionals give so much importance. It is perfectly logic that once special measures against respiratory diseases are abandoned the number of cases will increase which also means deaths will increase accordingly.

Giving importance to these deaths and doing things that will help preventing them (which may include yearly vaccinations) is part of what means living with the risk.

Fear is a choice. I chose not to live in fear and I feel sorry for the kids of parents who are living in fear.

Nothing in the article depends on people feeling fear, that is a strawman fallacy, information acts precisely in the opposite way, letting people take rational preventive measures according to the risk present in life. Saying that these are "incredible low numbers" can be a much stronger expression of fear because it clearly means disregarding the opinion of the medical professionals that originated the data of the article.

but the headline seems rather to have been written to sensationalize this

The headline clearly says the deaths happens on patients suffering from a rare complication, what is sensationalized aobut it? The article is simply repeating what was reported by the health ministry research team that is the one that is giving importance to the deaths observed in patients with encephalitis. The headline does not even include the fact that these complicated patients (some of which died and some of which have serious sequalae) were children without preexisting conditions to facilitate the complication, this means it is much more measured that it could be even if including only the information of the report.

@virusrex At this point, mate, you are just pulling the fire alarm in a crowded theatre.

virusrex At this point, mate, you are just pulling the fire alarm in a crowded theatre.

Again, this is not something I am writing, not even something a news site is writing, this is an official communication from a group of experts that are announcing the results of a scientific survey. You are trying to accuse these people of fear mongering because they are reporting true data in a perfectly valid way, again the headline could have even included the fact that the deaths happened in children without preexisting conditions, it would still be valid and true, but it did not.

Calling alarmist something just because you don't like people knowing something is not valid. The information is valid, the way it is exposed do not exaggerate the risks in any way. Rational people do not feel fear by knowing this rare serious complication is frequently fatal, those are all claims you are making without providing an argument to support them.

This is big news for a reason.

If Covid-19 started in January 2020, why wasn't it until a full 2 years later that this mystery illness started appearing.

Probably because the later strains that came about later in the pandemic were many times more transmissible and the prevention measures in place were no longer very effective meaning way more cases.

Development of acute encephalopathy among children is not limited to COVID-infection and is also known to afflict those who have contracted influenza.

So how many kids get acute encephalopathy each year after contracting influenza? 34 cases caused by COVID - obviously terrible for those affected, but it doesn't seem like a large number in a country with 120 million inhabitants - especially considering the huge number of people that have probably been infected with COVID (ignore the official testing figures, it's probably 70-80% of the population at this point). If we have a comparable number caused by influenza, then considering that those due to influenza never make the news, we have to ask why should those due to COVID? It seems like it is simply just for the sake of publishing another scary story about COVID without any real context.

The numbers are so low it's not really worth being too concerned about. Also, read the last paragraph. People in this country have become so paranoid because of news articles like this that they've forgotten that the regular old "flu" also exists. Cough? COVID. Sneeze? COVID. Runny nose? COVID. 37C temperature? COVID. Ya'll need to stop it already, Japan, for real. lol

@virusrex

Excellent posts. Very impressive.

Were the children vaccinated? The article is lacking the basic information. It maybe the case that covid vaccination caused problems for some children.

 obviously terrible for those affected, but it doesn't seem like a large number in a country with 120 million inhabitant

Except that this again ignores that these cases happened even while in life-changing measures against respiratory diseases, according to the ministry of health

https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/kenkou_iryou/kenkou/kekkaku-kansenshou01/houdou_00009.html

There were a grand total of 9 influenza hospitalizations in children for the whole winter season from September 2021 to March 2022, these are not deaths or even ICU admisions, just patients that required any kind of hospitalization because of influenza.

This helps understanding why the importance given to this report by the experts, measures that almost completely elimnated influenza were insufficient to do the same for covid, so once these measures are relaxed or abandoned it is logical to expect the complications and deaths to increase also in the pediatric group.

That is the reason influenza do not make it into the news, there are so few cases thanks to the anti-corona measures that it is not important to follow them.

 It seems like it is simply just for the sake of publishing another scary story about COVID without any real context.

This "scary story" is an official communication of a group of experts working for the ministry of health, they are just communicating something they consider important and that justifies protective measures before the problem becomes much more important. Specially for a pathogen that has been clearly described to cause reinfections, which in some cases are even more dangerous the subsequent times compared with the first one.

The numbers are so low it's not really worth being too concerned about. 

The experts that collected the information and are communicating it say this is worth being concerned, they are surely a much better source than people without their expertise and access to the information.

Were the children vaccinated? 

Judging from the fact that vaccinated people have a much lower risk of complications (and this includes Children) it is logical to expect these cases to be most likely unvaccinated. Your supposition has no basis at all according to the published data about it.

Influenza did not 'mysteriously' dissappear from the Planet.

Actually, it did. At least the Japanese flu (Influenza B Yamagata Line). The COVID measures erased that line.

I was expecting that coronavirus stories would be absent by now.

@virusrex

Excellent posts again.

So clearly a cut above.

There were a grand total of 9 influenza hospitalizations in children for the whole winter season from September 2021 to March 2022, these are not deaths or even ICU admisions, just patients that required any kind of hospitalization because of influenza.

I wasn't asking to compare with flu cases in the middle of the COVID pandemic when influenza was heavily supressed by the COVID countermeasures, I was talking about comparing to a normal influenza season - did influenza-induced encephalitis make the news then? How about at the peak of the very worst influenza seasons? Don't recall anything myself. I don't know the numbers either, but I expect that if influenza-induced encephalitis is a documented thing, then there must be a fair few cases for anyone to have noticed the correlation.

The experts that collected the information and are communicating it say this is worth being concerned, they are surely a much better source than people without their expertise and access to the information

The narrative that scientists are this group of altruistic people completely disinterested in the results of their studies, is unfortunately, a somewhat idealized view of modern day science, scientists and basic human behaviour. Those scientists are human beings with careers to think about. They are usually working in a highly competitive and cut-throat environment - their career outcomes are decided by by their research achievements, which are often judged by the number and quality of scientific publications. The quality of those publications is assessed mainly by where it was published, and following that by the number of citations that the publication attracted. In addition to that, nowadays services such as Altmetric will provide a list of all sorts of other metrics that can be used to assess the impact of a publication including number of citations, related patents, how many news outlets it was picked up by, even how many times it was re-tweeted! All this data is summarised in a colourful little badge next to the publication listing on the scientist's online profile which will all be scrutinized when assessing that scientist for, a tenured position, for example, or for granting their funding application. A good quality publication on a COVID-related topic in the last three years would absolutely have made it into a much higher level journal than a similar, or even a better quality study on some virus that was much rarer. Most scientists are decent, hard-working, honest people and they are not going to go making things up - thankfully, scientific fraud is pretty rare (Jan Hendrik Schon, and more recently, Obokata being some examples of notoriety), but scientists very often do, well lets just say, put a positive spin on the significance of their own work and research area for the reasons described above. For those fortunate enough to have been working on coronaviruses or epidemiology etc. and were able to do some studies related to COVID-19 over the last three years, they will have been doing their best to make hay while the sun was shining, and it is absolutely in their best interest that the sun continues to shine for as long as possible.