LAUSR

INTRODUCTION: A very small proportion of children who get infected with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) have a severe disease requiring ICU care Little is known about what risk factors are associated with severe disease in children The purpose of this study was to compare characteristics of children with ?severe? disease defined as those requiring ICU admission vs ?moderate? disease (hospital but not ICU admission) using the VIRUS: COVID 19 registry METHODS: Retrospective analysis of the Society of Critical Care Medicine VIRUS: COVID-19 registry encompassing children hospitalized at 49 participating sites between 02/20 to 07/20 Patient demographics and clinical presentations were compared among patients who required ICU admission vs those who did not Univariate and Multivariate logistic regression was performed using JMP RESULTS: Data was available for 398 children, of which 181 (45 4%) were admitted to ICU Children who required ICU admission were older (10 years vs 3 67 years, p<0 01) and were more likely to be African American (28 8% versus 17 8%, p= 0 02) A higher proportion of patients who required ICU admission have pre-existing conditions (58 2% vs 44 3%, p= 0 01) Asthma was the most common pre-existing condition;but, a higher proportion of ICU admits had a diagnosis of asthma (14 2% vs 7 52%, p= 0 01) The most common presenting symptom was fever;however, this did not differ between groups Nausea/vomiting (38 4% vs 22 1%, p<0 01), dyspnea (31 8% vs 17 7%, p<0 01) and abdominal pain (25 2% vs 14 1%, p<0 01) were more common in patients requiring ICU admission A significantly higher proportion of patients who required ICU had multisystem inflammatory syndrome of childhood [MIS-C (45 9% vs 6 8%, p<0 01)] and acute kidney injury (9 34% vs 1 7%, p<0 01) Race (AA vs white, odds ratio 1 9, p = 0 02) and age (p <0 01) were associated with the risk of ICU admission on multi variate logistic regression Presence of preexisting conditions was not significant after accounting for age and race (p=0 07) CONCLUSIONS: Preliminary data suggest that children requiring ICU admissions for severe COVID-19 infections are more likely to be older and from African American race Asthma is the most common preexisting condition Gastrointestinal complains are more likely in severe COVID infections