In the majority of cases, children who catch COVID-19 won’t end up suffering serious illness. Kids have fewer symptoms, less severe disease and tend to recover faster than adults.

The best case scenario for children sees them having relatively manageable symptoms, recovering fully and soon testing negative. As researchers, we wanted to understand why some children have a far worse experience.

If they don’t recover, children with COVID-19 can go on develop two different disorders. The first is multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), where patients have painful inflammation on their skin, eyes and even internal organs, such as the heart, lungs and brain.

The most fascinating (and confusing) thing about MIS-C is it never occurs in adults, only children.