Even short school breaks affect student learning unevenly across socioeconomic backgrounds
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 18-Oct-2025 04:11 ET (18-Oct-2025 08:11 GMT/UTC)
The COVID-19 pandemic presented several challenges, leaving the specific impact of class closures on student performance unclear. To address this, researchers examined the effect of pre-pandemic class closures due to influenza outbreaks on students’ test scores in Japan. They found that class closures adversely affected the math scores of elementary school boys from low-income households, likely due to lost instructional time and unhealthy behaviors. Fortunately, high-quality teachers could help students recover from the learning loss.
Pediatric data show that the increase in long COVID risk was also accompanied by the increased chance of developing a number of other related conditions
Long COVID is a chronic condition that causes cognitive problems known as “brain fog,” but its biological mechanisms remain largely unclear. Now, researchers from Japan used a novel imaging technique to visualize AMPA receptors—key molecules for memory and learning—in the living brain. They discovered that higher AMPA receptor density in patients with Long COVID was closely tied to the severity of their symptoms, highlighting these molecules as potential diagnostic biomarkers and therapeutic targets.
Children and adolescents were twice as likely to experience long COVID after catching COVID for the second time, compared to their peers with a single previous infection, according to a large study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and published in Lancet Infectious Diseases. These results run counter to the popular perceptions that COVID in children is "mild" and that reinfections with COVID do not carry the same risk of long COVID that initial infections do.
Exercise can help to restore a more normal, well-regulated immune system in people with post-COVID syndrome, according to a gold-standard randomised-controlled trial presented at the European Respiratory Society Congress in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
An analysis of data from over 1.2 million pregnant individuals found that those who received a COVID-19 vaccination had a 58% lower risk of being infected with the virus, as well as a lower risk of experiencing a stillbirth or preterm birth, according to research presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2025 National Conference & Exhibition at the Colorado Convention Center from Sept. 26-30.
For the study, “Safety and Efficacy of Maternal COVID-19 Vaccination During Pregnancy: Umbrella Review & Meta-Analyses,” the author conducted a systematic search of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase from Jan. 1, 2021, to Sep. 13, 2023.
The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in students being less engaged and open about sexual education when compared with other middle school classes, according to research presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2025 National Conference & Exhibition at the Colorado Convention Center from Sept. 26-30.
Unintentional pediatric marijuana ingestions in children under the age of 5 have risen by more than 1,000% in the past seven years, according to research presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2025 National Conference & Exhibition at the Colorado Convention Center from Sept. 26-30. A Tennessee research team reviewed over 2,300 pediatric emergency cases from 2016 to 2023 and found cases rose sharply coinciding with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.