School Nurses on the Front Lines of Health Care: Clinical Presentations Associated With COVID-19 Infection

Over the past 2 years, COVID-19 has swept through the United States and our world, infecting millions of people. Due to the high transmissibility of this communicable disease, school-age children are at a unique risk because of close contact with others throughout the day. Many children who contract COVID-19 will go on to have asymptomatic or mild noncomplicated symptomatic infections. However, some children will develop severe or persistent symptoms. Given the unique position of school nurses in seeing a large volume of children and adolescents, it is important that they are familiar with the variable presentations and complications of COVID-19. Throughout this article, we discuss three cases of students presenting to the school nurse’s office with signs and symptoms associated with COVID-19 infection.