Mentis Alexios-Fotios A, Paltoglou George, Demakakos Panayotes, Ahmed Faheem, Chrousos George P
University Research Institute of Maternal and Child Health and Precision Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 11527 Athens, Greece.
Adolescent Health Care, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, "Aghia Sophia" Children's Hospital, 11527 Athens, Greece.
Children (Basel). 2022 Apr 1;9(4):482. doi: 10.3390/children9040482.
The COVID-19 pandemic has massively affected people's health, societies, and the global economy. Our lives are no longer as they were before COVID-19, and, most likely, will never be the same again. We hypothesize that the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on population health and the economy will last for a very long time and will still be felt in the 22nd century. Our hypothesis is based on evidence from the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, the Dutch famine during the Second World War, and the 2007-2008 economic crisis, as well as from the rationally predicted impact of COVID-19 on human development. We expect that the COVID-19 pandemic, including the mitigation measures taken against it, will affect children's development in multiple ways, including obesity, both while in utero and during critical and sensitive windows of development, including the early childhood years and those of puberty and adolescence. The psychosocial and biological impact of this effect will be considerable and unequally distributed. The implications will last at least a lifetime, and, through inter-generational transmission, will likely take us to future generations, into the 22nd century. We argue for the urgent need of designing and initiating comprehensive longitudinal cohort studies to closely monitor the long-term effects of COVID-19 on children conceived, born, and raised during the pandemic. Such an approach requires a close and effective collaboration between scientists, healthcare providers, policymakers, and the younger generations, and it will hopefully uncover evidence necessary to understand and mitigate the impact of the pandemic on people's lives in the 21st and 22nd centuries.
新冠疫情对人们的健康、社会和全球经济都产生了巨大影响。我们的生活已不再是新冠疫情之前的样子，而且很可能再也不会和以前一样了。我们推测，新冠疫情对人口健康和经济的影响将持续很长时间，甚至在22世纪仍会被感受到。我们的推测基于1918 - 1919年流感大流行、二战期间荷兰饥荒、2007 - 2008年经济危机的相关证据，以及对新冠疫情对人类发展的合理预测影响。我们预计，新冠疫情，包括针对它采取的缓解措施，将在多个方面影响儿童的发育，包括在子宫内以及发育的关键和敏感时期，如幼儿期、青春期和青少年期的肥胖问题。这种影响在心理社会和生物学方面将是巨大的，而且分布不均。其影响至少会持续一生，并且通过代际传递，很可能会延续到后代，直至22世纪。我们主张迫切需要设计并启动全面的纵向队列研究，以密切监测新冠疫情对疫情期间受孕、出生和成长的儿童的长期影响。这种方法需要科学家、医疗服务提供者、政策制定者和年轻一代之间密切而有效的合作，有望揭示理解和减轻疫情对21世纪和22世纪人们生活影响所需的证据。
