Coronavirus is causing a rare inflammatory syndrome in some US children but pushing case for mask wearing remains difficult

Kale Wuthrich watched doctors surround his son Cooper in the emergency room, giving him fluids through IV tubes, running a battery of tests and trying to stabilise him.

He was enveloped by the confusion and fear that had been building since his 12-year-old suddenly fell ill weeks after a mild bout with the coronavirus.

“He was very close at that point to not making it, and basically they told me to sit in the corner and pray,” Mr Wuthrich said.

“And that’s what I did.”

By the end of November, the boy from a secluded valley in the US state Idaho became one of hundreds of children in the United States who have been diagnosed with a rare, extreme immune response to COVID-19 called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children.