Children's Healthcare of Atlanta launched a new COVID-19 Pediatric Assessment Tool on choa.org to help parents determine how to care for their child if the child has a fever and/or cough, or if the child may have been around someone with COVID-19 but has no symptoms. They invite parents to explore this tool and share this resource with your community.
This tool is meant to help parents answer two questions:
1) If a child has a fever and/or cough, what should be done?
2) If a child may have been around someone with COVID-19 (exposed) but has no symptoms, what should be done?
This tool should only be used if a child has no symptoms, or if the main symptoms are fever and/or cough. COVID-19 can sometimes cause other symptoms such as sore throat, vomiting (throwing up), abdominal pain (belly pain) and diarrhea. This tool does not apply to a child with these or other symptoms. COVID-19 is just one cause of fever and/or cough. There are many other causes, and these other causes have not gone away now that COVID-19 is in the community. Therefore, this tool will screen your child for all possibilities that should be considered for fever and/or cough only, not just COVID-19.
This tool should not be used:
1) if your child is less than 4 months old, or more than 20 years of age
2) if your child of any age already has a serious medical condition which requires regular visits to a specialist or daily medication. Examples would include: Diabetes, Cancer, Seizures, Asthma, Kidney Disease, Immunologic Deficiency or Congenital Heart Disease.