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Cuomo announced the news on Saturday, May 9 at his daily news briefing, held in midtown Manhattan.
It comes a day after the deaths of a Westchester boy, whose age was not released, and a 5-year-old at Mount Sinai’s Kravis Children’s Hospital in Manhattan.
The age of the third child to die has also not been released.
“This is the last thing that we need at this time, with all that is going on, with all the anxiety we have, now for parents to have to worry about whether or not their youngster was infected,” Cuomo said.
Statewide, there have been 73 reported cases of the syndrome.
According to health officials, “while rare, we are seeing evidence that COVID-19 can cause severe illness in children.”
The symptoms are similar to Kawasaki disease and toxic shock-like syndrome.
The infected children tested positive for COVID-10 or antibodies, but “those were not the symptoms they showed when they came into the hospital system," Cuomo said, calling the illness “the priority for us today.”
The CDC has asked New York to develop a national criteria for the illness, and the state is also working with the NY Genome Center and Rockefeller University to conduct a study to help us better understand it.
"This is a frightening new development, but rest assured we are doing everything we can to learn more and keep parents informed," Cuomo said.
Parents should seek immediate care if a child has:
- A prolonged fever (more than five days);
- Difficulty feeding (infants) or is too sick to drink fluids;
- Severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, or vomiting;
- Change in skin color - becoming pale, patchy, and/or blue;
- Trouble breathing or is breathing very quickly;
- Racing heart or chest pain;
- Decreased amount or frequency of urine;
- Lethargy, irritability, or confusion.
For more information, see the images above.
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