Social Disparities and Social Distancing During the Covid Pandemic.

According to Putnam (2000) and Bourdieu (1986), social disparities may result in the formation of narrow social bonds that exacerbate existing social cleavages and impede collective action. Motivated by this insight, we examine the relationship between social disparities and social distancing during the pre-vaccine Covid pandemic in the US. Using a panel of weekly, county-level observations, we find that income, educational and racial disparities are associated with a statistically significant decrease in the social distancing. This result is robust to controls for a wide variety of socioeconomic variables, the Covid infection rate, and a measure of social capital.

Patients Diagnosed with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children Have Persistent Neurologic, Sleep, and Psychiatric Symptoms After Hospitalization.

Background: Acute neurological complications from COVID-19 have been reported in both pediatric and adult populations. Chronic symptoms after recovery have been reported in adults and can include neuropsychiatric and sleep symptoms. Persistent symptoms in children with the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) have not been studied. Methods: We conducted a single-center retrospective chart review and cross-sectional survey of patients diagnosed with MIS-C. Patients and parents were surveyed on symptoms before the COVID-19 pandemic, upon admission, and 23 weeks (interquartile range 20-26 weeks) after discharge. Age and gender-matched patients requiring intensive care unit (ICU) care for status asthmaticus were surveyed as a control group. Results: In this cohort of 47 patients, 77% reported neurological, 60% psychiatric, and 77% sleep symptoms during hospitalization. Prior to hospitalization, 15% reported neurological, 0% psychiatric, and 7% sleep symptoms. Eighteen (50%) of the 36 patients who had neurological symptoms during hospitalization continued to have symptoms on follow-up (odds ratio [OR] = ∞, p = .003]). Similarly, 16 (57%) of 28 patients with psychiatric symptoms reported persistence at follow-up (OR = 5.00; p = .02). Fifteen (42%) of the 18 patients reporting sleep disturbance during hospitalization had persistence on follow-up (OR = 1.9; p = .49). The aggregate of neurological, psychiatric, and sleep symptoms during admission and at follow-up was significantly higher for MIS-C patients requiring ICU care when compared to the control group (p = .01). Conclusions: In this cohort of patients with MIS-C, a majority of patients reported new-onset neuropsychiatric and sleep symptoms. Almost half of these patients had persistent symptoms on a follow-up survey.