The rescheduled first-day of school for Arizona is currently less than one month away and disturbing news regarding children and COVID-19 is coming out of South Carolina.

For its population, South Carolina has become a top-five coronavirus hotspot in the world, the South Carolina Post and Courier reported last week, in a story that was updated on Tuesday.  Arizona, Florida, and Bahrain, in the Middle East, round out the top four.

The state has recently set new records for both positive tests and percentage of tests returned positive.  Hospitalization rates are also on the rise.  South Carolina, Florida and Georgia were among some of the first states to reopen following the initial wave of the pandemic.

Last week, a child under the age of four reportedly died from COVID-19 in Chester County, S.C.  It is the state’s first recorded pediatric death linked to the disease.

On Sunday, two young people who were among South Carolina’s nearly 2,000 new cases of COVID-19, were also diagnosed with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C).

According to an article by Adam Benson Abenson, the S.C. Post and Courier reports that the little-known syndrome was first found in Italy as the pandemic was making its way across Europe.  It has apparently surfaced in various hotspots across the world and is now showing up in the U.S.

The syndrome reportedly occurs in children and teens who have contracted COVID-19.  Scientists say it is characterized by the inflammation of body parts and say that it can affect vital organs like the brain, eyes, heart, kidneys and lungs.  Experts say there is also a threat of low blood pressure associated with MIS-C.

Just like the number of cases of COVID-19 that seems to trigger MIS-C, nobody really knows how many cases of the syndrome are out there.  The Post and Courier reports that CDC data shows at least one case in 26 states from mid-May to Mid-June.  About a third of the cases were in children ages 5-14 and boys seem to be disproportionately affected at 62%.

The Post and Courier reports that Robin LaCroix, medical director and pediatric infectious disease specialist for a children’s hospital in upstate S.C., calls the syndrome “fairly uncommon”.  She also said that it is unknown why the syndrome strikes certain children but that most kids fully recover.

The average hospital stay was seven days and the syndrome can reportedly be treated with anti-inflammatories and medication.