Functional Limitations and Illness-Related Absenteeism among School-Aged Children with and without Long COVID, United States, 2022-2023.

We examined functional limitations and illness-related chronic absenteeism (i.e., missing >18 days of school for health reasons) in a cross-sectional nationally representative sample of 11,057 US children 5-17 years of age who ever or never had long COVID (i.e., symptoms lasting >3 months after COVID-19 illness). Among 4,587 children with prior COVID-19, we estimated whether long COVID was associated with increased illness-related chronic absenteeism by using logistic regression. Our analysis showed that ≈1.4% of school-aged children had long COVID at some point. Among children with prior COVID-19, those who had long COVID at some point more frequently reported functional limitations, such as difficulty with memory, than those who did not have long COVID (18.3% vs. 8.6%). Having long COVID was associated with higher odds of illness-related chronic absenteeism. Children who had long COVID could experience functional limitations and absenteeism. School accommodations might be an option to improve functional limitations.