Some pediatricians on Long Island say they've noticed a strange trend of children ending up hospitalized with an inflammatory issue they believe could be linked to COVID-19. 

Over the last few weeks, in what one pediatrician calls “the COVID era,” multiple children have been admitted to the hospital with a toxic shock-like or Kawasaki disease-like syndrome.

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Dr. James Schneider, director of Pediatric Critical Care at Cohen Children's Hospital, says Kawasaki disease involves inflammation of blood vessels and is generally related to infections that have happened in the past.

Dr. Schneider says he's seen about 12 children, from as young as 3 to patients in their teens, many of whom tested negative for coronavirus, but positive for coronavirus antibodies.

The doctor says that would imply that they had coronavirus weeks ago, but never showed any symptoms and now they are seeing the body's response to COVID-19 with the Kawasaki-like syndrome.

Some of the symptoms are a rash, red tongue, cracked lips and swollen hands and feet.

"It's a concerning disease because we don't really have a definitive treatment for it, per se. We have a pretty good treatment regimen. We're pretty comfortable with regarding Kawasaki disease, but this, this shock-like syndrome, we're still really learning as a community about how best to treat this," the doctor says.

Dr. Schneider says this is an important piece of information about COVID-19 for parents to know, because the Kawasaki-like or toxic shock disease they are seeing could lead to low blood pressure or heart problems and those issues need to be dealt with as soon as possible.