Strengths and limitations of a policy for handling and following up suspected pediatric cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

ABSTRACT

To compensate for the poor initial knowledge about pediatric SARS-CoV-2 infections and the limited access to non-urgent medical care during lockdown, a local telephone follow-up program was set up to remotely monitor children with confirmed or suspected SARS-CoV-2 infection at the pediatric emergency department of a French tertiary hospital. We retrospectively assessed 131 children. A total of 488 phone call attempts resulted in 293 (60%) teleconsultations. This telephone follow-up program was simple and appeared necessary in the first stage of the pandemic with an emergent pathogen. However, it was time-consuming and should be improved for further use.