COVID-19 “infodemics” and asthmatic children: The return to school challenge

To the Editor: We read with great interest the Rostrum article by Abrams et al,1 highlighting the relevance of clear and consistent recommendations about the relationships between asthma, allergies, school attendance, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection in childhood. Supporting this effect of school reopening is the recent resurgence of cases in the United Kingdom being concentrated among schoolchildren (2-16 years old) as well as adults in the 35 to 49 age group, possibly comprising their caregivers.6 In a recently published review,3 we addressed the clinical and management challenges of pediatric asthma in the current pandemic, and the available evidence of a low actual risk of COVID-19 morbidity or mortality in these patients. At this moment in the pandemic, where anxiety generated by misinformation becomes more and more noticeable in families, appropriate information on sensitive topics, such as the return to school of children with asthma, the most common chronic respiratory illness in childhood, makes this issue a subject of interest to the lay public.