Demographic and clinical characteristics of pediatric COVID-19 in Arkansas: March–December 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic reached the United States in early 2020 and spread rapidly across the country. This retrospective study describes the demographic and clinical characteristics of 308 children presenting to an Arkansas Childrens emergency department or admitted to an Arkansas Childrens hospital with COVID-19 in the first ten months of the COVID-19 pandemic, prior to the emergence of clinically significant variants and available vaccinations. Adolescents aged 13 and older represented the largest proportion of this population. The most common presenting symptoms were fever, gastrointestinal symptoms, and upper respiratory symptoms. Patients with multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) had a longer length of stay than patients with acute COVID-19. Children from urban zip codes had lower odds of admission but were more likely to be readmitted after discharge. Nearly twenty percent of the study population incidentally tested positive for COVID-19. Despite lower mortality in children with COVID than in adults, morbidity and resource utilization are significant. With many Arkansas children living in rural areas and therefore far from pediatric hospitals, community hospitals should be prepared to evaluate children presenting with COVID-19 and to determine which children warrant transport to pediatric-specific facilities.