Parents of kids with asthma and allergies should prepare a plan to keep them safe as schools reopen, the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) says. Along with guarding against COVID-19, it’s important to protect against cold, flu and other viruses that pose a risk to children with asthma. That includes wearing masks,…  read on >  read on >

Spit and scan. That’s all you have to do, and in less than an hour, you can not only find out if you have COVID-19 but what variant you have, all without leaving your home. This is the hope and promise of a new saliva-based COVID-19 test that is currently under development. “Several at-home tests…  read on >  read on >

The Delta variant is proving just as infectious for children as for everyone else, with pediatric cases surging in some parts of the United States, pediatricians and children’s hospitals say. However, it’s not clear yet whether the variant is any harsher on kids compared to earlier COVID-19 strains, leading to more hospitalizations and brushes with…  read on >  read on >

A little more than two out of every three people who have mild or moderate cases of COVID-19 will go on to develop long-term symptoms. That’s the troubling takeaway from a University of Arizona Health Sciences’ study launched in May 2020. “This is a real wake-up call for anyone who has not been vaccinated,” said…  read on >  read on >

As doctors see more kids with COVID-19, some positive news has emerged: Only about 4% of children and teens have long-lasting COVID symptoms, a British study finds. The study confirms that COVID-19 tends to be a mild illness in children and that they usually recover quickly, the researchers reported Aug. 3 in The Lancet Child…  read on >  read on >

Go ahead, put your credit card away: Handling cash and coins isn’t likely to give you COVID-19. European researchers treated various coins and paper money with different concentrations of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID. A stainless steel surface was used as a control. “Under realistic conditions, infection with SARS-CoV-2 from cash is very unlikely,”…  read on >  read on >

U.S. gun sales increased early in the COVID-19 pandemic, and many of those firearms ended up in homes with teens, researchers say. “This finding is concerning because we know that the single biggest risk factor for adolescent firearm injuries is access to an unsecured firearm,” said study co-author Dr. Patrick Carter. He is co-director of…  read on >  read on >