The Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park, which...

The Cohen Children's Medical Center in New Hyde Park, which has treated most of the children in Long Island hospitals for the COVID-19-linked syndrome. None of the deaths occurred there, Northwell Health said. Credit: Northwell Health

Three New York children, including a Suffolk teen, have now died from a coronavirus-linked illness, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's office said Saturday, as the governor vowed stepped-up efforts to find the cause. 

New York hospitals have reported 73 cases of the illness in children, mostly toddlers or elementary-school age, Cuomo said.

Most of the children either tested positive for the coronavirus or for antibodies to the virus, the state Health Department said. Similar cases have emerged in Europe.

Cuomo announced the first New York death from the disease on Friday, of a 5-year-old New York City boy, and said the state is investigating several other child deaths.

Westchester County officials Friday said a 7-year-old boy died at a Valhalla hospital of neurological complications from the syndrome.

The disease causes inflammation of the blood vessels and complications that can include inflamed heart muscles and breathing problems, experts say. The disease is similar to Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome, although experts say there are key differences.

More than 30 children have been treated in Long Island hospitals for what the state Health Department is calling “pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19.”

Most have been treated at Cohen Children’s Medical Center in New Hyde Park, although none of the deaths occurred there, Northwell Health said Saturday.

Dr. James Schneider, chief of pediatric critical care at Cohen, said the syndrome is emerging a few weeks after children were believed to have contracted the coronavirus. It appears to stem from the children’s immune systems’ “hyperactive response” to the coronavirus infection, he said.

Most of the children had been generally healthy before they became sick with the syndrome, and why some children with the coronavirus become sick with the disease and the large majority do not is still unknown, Schneider said.

Cuomo said the state Health Department will work with the New York Genome Center and Rockefeller University, both in Manhattan, to conduct a genome and RNA-sequencing study and investigate whether there may be a genetic cause.

In addition, Cuomo said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked the state to develop national criteria for identifying and responding to the syndrome so other states and hospital systems can begin looking into potential cases.

Cuomo has asked parents to look out for symptoms such as prolonged fever, severe abdominal pain, change in skin color, racing heart and chest pain.

“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 their youngster was infected,” the governor said.

Even so, experts say that the belief that most children who contract the coronavirus will either have only mild symptoms or none at all still holds.

“Well over 99% of kids do very well with COVID, but parents should be observant and — especially if COVID has been in the household and a child starts to develop a high fever, abdominal pain, rash — that’s something they should immediately get medical care for,” Dr. Lawrence Eisenstein, the Nassau County health commissioner, said Friday.

With Robert Brodsky

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