Child starting Kindergarten...guess we'll just get sick?
July 22, 2022 9:02 AM Subscribe
This fall little REH will be going to school for the first time. My wife and I have been successful in avoiding Covid so far, but we're worried to the point of almost being fatalistic about it.
Basically our thought process goes like this:
- Eww, Covid looks nasty, not 'just the flue' at all
- We have distance for home, masks for Dr appts and errands, and vaccines in case something gets thru
- Little REH being in school means that (1) he'll be with tons of kids, some of which will get sick, (2) consistent mask wearing probably can't often be a priority for teachers (3) inside most of the day.
- So...he's probably going to get sick, so we're probably going to get sick
- Well at least it builds up immunity...no, not really with all the variants? Oh and the more Covid you get the higher chances for Long Covid?
- Well it's not practical to home school, right. Right?
I figured the vaccine would help more than it does, but it looks like it doesn't stop transmission, may reduce severity, but no guarantee, especially with variants.
It seems not just possible, but probable that our household will get this or upcoming variants of Covid and eventually be at higher risk for Long Covid.
How are people dealing with this? How is everyone so nonchalant about a slide into ill health?
What are people doing to stay safe while dealing with schools as a vector?
Basically our thought process goes like this:
- Eww, Covid looks nasty, not 'just the flue' at all
- We have distance for home, masks for Dr appts and errands, and vaccines in case something gets thru
- Little REH being in school means that (1) he'll be with tons of kids, some of which will get sick, (2) consistent mask wearing probably can't often be a priority for teachers (3) inside most of the day.
- So...he's probably going to get sick, so we're probably going to get sick
- Well at least it builds up immunity...no, not really with all the variants? Oh and the more Covid you get the higher chances for Long Covid?
- Well it's not practical to home school, right. Right?
I figured the vaccine would help more than it does, but it looks like it doesn't stop transmission, may reduce severity, but no guarantee, especially with variants.
It seems not just possible, but probable that our household will get this or upcoming variants of Covid and eventually be at higher risk for Long Covid.
How are people dealing with this? How is everyone so nonchalant about a slide into ill health?
What are people doing to stay safe while dealing with schools as a vector?
Non-US here, in a place where we've had months of lockdowns and curfews over the past few years.
All I can say, with two school-age children, is that having a child catch coronavirus doesn't mean that everyone in the household will get it. There are many, many examples of this in our school community. Even in my family, one of my children tested positive and none of the rest of us caught it (and I made no attempt to keep him away from the rest of the household, that just seemed like emotional torture at his age).
How is everyone so nonchalant about a slide into ill health?
I really, really don't want to catch Covid (I was horribly ill with something else two years ago and I don't want to revisit that) but I also want to live my life and protect my mental health (and that of my children). So basically I take all reasonable precautions and try to let the rest go.
posted by rubbish bin night at 9:25 AM on July 22, 2022 [6 favorites]
All I can say, with two school-age children, is that having a child catch coronavirus doesn't mean that everyone in the household will get it. There are many, many examples of this in our school community. Even in my family, one of my children tested positive and none of the rest of us caught it (and I made no attempt to keep him away from the rest of the household, that just seemed like emotional torture at his age).
How is everyone so nonchalant about a slide into ill health?
I really, really don't want to catch Covid (I was horribly ill with something else two years ago and I don't want to revisit that) but I also want to live my life and protect my mental health (and that of my children). So basically I take all reasonable precautions and try to let the rest go.
posted by rubbish bin night at 9:25 AM on July 22, 2022 [6 favorites]
There's also the fact that vaxx rates for the kindergarten set are abysmal! You can certainly try to pressure your school to enforce masking for all, air filters, UV lights, etc. Cost will be an issue. You can counter that by offering to start a drive to do homemade DIY air filters out of box fans and AC HEPA filters, these perform very well in tests. See eg here, many other similar plans and data are available. Each year parents get told to buy a bunch of stuff for school, it's not unreasonable to expect enough families can chip in for the parts and labor for 1-2 DIY air filters per classroom.
Homeschooling isn't necessarily impossible, if you are up for it and willing to sacrifice. I had the privilege to stop working in March 2020 so that I could do home pre-school for my kid and it was pretty cool. He definitely learned a bunch of stuff he wouldn't have in preschool, but he also missed out a bit on socializing with random kids (he's great with adults, and he can socialize with our few kid friends we see in person). Mine will start kindergarten in the fall. Losing my salary was a little rough, and now we have decided to use a private kindergarten because they have much smaller class sizes and take covid very seriously, when public options here don't even *ask* everyone to mask. So further financial toll. But as a biologist with some training in disease ecology, I read things much as you are, and we were unwilling to accept very high likelihood of kiddo bringing covid home to all of us in the first semester (in our situation everyone catching it is most likely if kiddo does). Good luck!
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:26 AM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Homeschooling isn't necessarily impossible, if you are up for it and willing to sacrifice. I had the privilege to stop working in March 2020 so that I could do home pre-school for my kid and it was pretty cool. He definitely learned a bunch of stuff he wouldn't have in preschool, but he also missed out a bit on socializing with random kids (he's great with adults, and he can socialize with our few kid friends we see in person). Mine will start kindergarten in the fall. Losing my salary was a little rough, and now we have decided to use a private kindergarten because they have much smaller class sizes and take covid very seriously, when public options here don't even *ask* everyone to mask. So further financial toll. But as a biologist with some training in disease ecology, I read things much as you are, and we were unwilling to accept very high likelihood of kiddo bringing covid home to all of us in the first semester (in our situation everyone catching it is most likely if kiddo does). Good luck!
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:26 AM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
How are people dealing with this?Nowadays, I never think about it. When things first opened up, I reminded myself often that the vaccines are extremely effective and that the chances of having a bad time are quite low. Also, there are no reasonable precautions which will indefinitely prevent you from getting it.
I advise being critical about your worry about long covid. There are many breathless studies which play fast and loose with definitions in order to get scary-high risk numbers.
How is everyone so nonchalant about a slide into ill health?I'm nonchalant because it's not a slide into ill health. The vaccines are extremely effective at turning this from a low but serious risk into the realm of normal risk.
One way to frame it is by zooming out on our entire societal response. Before we had the vaccines and Paxlovid, it was vitally important to get as many people as possible quite scared about Covid, in order for our non-pharmaceutical interventions (masks, staying home, frequent testing) to work. That campaign was necessary. Under that regime, catching Covid was a big deal, which meant quarantining — as hard as it is — was necessary too. But that was before we had vaccines and other pharmaceutical interventions, which make both the individual and societal risk much, much less serious. Catching Covid in a region with widespread vaccine availability is not a big deal. It's no longer a benefit to society to be scared of Covid. Stay home if you get it, but there really is no need to carry forward these pre-vaccine countermeasures or ways of thinking into the indefinite future.
Well at least it builds up immunity...no, not really with all the variants?Put this in context. Does it terrify you that you keep getting the common cold? I assume not. So why is it scary that Covid does the same? It's a coronavirus. The long-term reality is that it will be like other coronaviruses, which you keep getting throughout your life. This one was very novel and thus very dangerous, but we got vaccinated, so it's less novel and thus less dangerous. It's not as quotidian as the common cold but it will be in a couple years.
posted by daveliepmann at 9:29 AM on July 22, 2022 [18 favorites]
Start teaching your kid now to keep their mask on and wear it correctly, even if teachers or other kids aren’t doing the same. Consistently wearing N95 masks indoors at all times has protected me through several Covid outbreaks in a school setting this year. Don’t depend on teachers to enforce masks—at best they won’t have time and at worst you’ll end up with someone who doesn’t believe in masking and will actively refuse to help.
Seriously, now is the time to start finding comfortable, well-fitting, proven masks and build up some stamina for wearing them. Make it a game! You can make some kind of fun chart in the beginning where you and your kid each get a star (or whatever) for every five minutes that you keep your mask on so they can see their progress. Cash in the stars with a fun activity together and gradually increase the time needed before getting a star. Eventually you won’t need the chart, but in the beginning it can build positive associations and get some momentum going. Make sure you do this with your child so they know mask-wearing is something everyone needs to do.
Consider donating air filters to the classroom. There are certainly teachers out there who will say they’re not necessary, but if you remove all barriers to using the filters it will go a long way toward their use. Do not waste time trying to get the school to do this in the short term because it very likely will not happen. Do not depend on logic to convince administrators to take steps that are backed by science. Schools (in my area at least) are really invested in making sure people think Covid is no big deal and will try to force everyone to get by with inadequate safety practices. Your concern is legitimate—we don’t yet know what long Covid is going to be like for people as time goes on so it’s wise to take the precautions we can.
posted by corey flood at 9:34 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
Seriously, now is the time to start finding comfortable, well-fitting, proven masks and build up some stamina for wearing them. Make it a game! You can make some kind of fun chart in the beginning where you and your kid each get a star (or whatever) for every five minutes that you keep your mask on so they can see their progress. Cash in the stars with a fun activity together and gradually increase the time needed before getting a star. Eventually you won’t need the chart, but in the beginning it can build positive associations and get some momentum going. Make sure you do this with your child so they know mask-wearing is something everyone needs to do.
Consider donating air filters to the classroom. There are certainly teachers out there who will say they’re not necessary, but if you remove all barriers to using the filters it will go a long way toward their use. Do not waste time trying to get the school to do this in the short term because it very likely will not happen. Do not depend on logic to convince administrators to take steps that are backed by science. Schools (in my area at least) are really invested in making sure people think Covid is no big deal and will try to force everyone to get by with inadequate safety practices. Your concern is legitimate—we don’t yet know what long Covid is going to be like for people as time goes on so it’s wise to take the precautions we can.
posted by corey flood at 9:34 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
There's also the fact that vaxx rates for the kindergarten set are abysmal!
Unfortunately true for all children. In my northern NJ town with its own regional school district, about 90% of the 18+ population and 50% of the 5-18 population is vaccinated (data on the under 5s isn't out yet but I imagine it's even lower).
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:35 AM on July 22, 2022
Unfortunately true for all children. In my northern NJ town with its own regional school district, about 90% of the 18+ population and 50% of the 5-18 population is vaccinated (data on the under 5s isn't out yet but I imagine it's even lower).
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:35 AM on July 22, 2022
I have had sequelae.
Not for Covid, which does terrify me especially the circulatory aspects. But I had pneumonia multiple times as a kid and had reduced lung capacity and I still have some scarring (but have worked to bring that capacity up which I had the luxury of doing.) And, lucky me, one time I had pneumonia followed by mono and then got complications from the mono (I'd been on serious antibiotics) and was sick with fatigue and a liver problem for a year. And now I have a demylination disorder which may be related.
None of which is fun but I also have a great life. Pre-Covid, I wasn't keeping my kids home to avoid mono. (However, we were vaccinating for flu and pertussis boosters and everything else.)
I've also lost a child to a 1:10,000 medical event. The fear is real; I know I can lose someone. At the same time, what I wanted for her was...to live. To see Paris. Etc. I had to learn to let my subsequent kids live too.
I was and am pro-mitigation. Locking down was appropriate. Masking is still appropriate (we do inside anywhere not our home) as is fixing our ventilation and also we don't do a lot of indoor group things, no indoor dining really etc. During big spikes occasionally I have had the luxury of pulling my school age kids out for a couple of weeks and I have.
Post-vaccine, here's where I have the luxury to be at. We could have lived in 1022, or 1822, or 1922, but we live in 2022. That's our family mantra. We live in 2022. 2022 has some risks 2019 did not. We try to make good choices. But those choices include school, work (I work fairly front line so have had to be back at it since late 2020), reasonable socialization, some art, etc.
How do you do it? One day at a time.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:35 AM on July 22, 2022 [13 favorites]
Not for Covid, which does terrify me especially the circulatory aspects. But I had pneumonia multiple times as a kid and had reduced lung capacity and I still have some scarring (but have worked to bring that capacity up which I had the luxury of doing.) And, lucky me, one time I had pneumonia followed by mono and then got complications from the mono (I'd been on serious antibiotics) and was sick with fatigue and a liver problem for a year. And now I have a demylination disorder which may be related.
None of which is fun but I also have a great life. Pre-Covid, I wasn't keeping my kids home to avoid mono. (However, we were vaccinating for flu and pertussis boosters and everything else.)
I've also lost a child to a 1:10,000 medical event. The fear is real; I know I can lose someone. At the same time, what I wanted for her was...to live. To see Paris. Etc. I had to learn to let my subsequent kids live too.
I was and am pro-mitigation. Locking down was appropriate. Masking is still appropriate (we do inside anywhere not our home) as is fixing our ventilation and also we don't do a lot of indoor group things, no indoor dining really etc. During big spikes occasionally I have had the luxury of pulling my school age kids out for a couple of weeks and I have.
Post-vaccine, here's where I have the luxury to be at. We could have lived in 1022, or 1822, or 1922, but we live in 2022. That's our family mantra. We live in 2022. 2022 has some risks 2019 did not. We try to make good choices. But those choices include school, work (I work fairly front line so have had to be back at it since late 2020), reasonable socialization, some art, etc.
How do you do it? One day at a time.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:35 AM on July 22, 2022 [13 favorites]
My two kids are in elementary school (in person).
We consider ourselves to have a "bucket of risk".
We allocate most of our risk allowance to the kids going to school. This means we do not dine at indoor restaurants, go to indoor play spaces, have indoor playdates (though there is some squish here, with kids in their classrooms who they otherwise see everyday). We otherwise limit risk.
We chose a summer camp that is entirely outdoors. My kids play outdoor sports. We are vaccinated. They also still wear masks to school even if most other kids don't.
It works fine, my kids still see friends all the time and we are running around on the weekend going from activity to activity. Winter is a little trickier, but dressed appropriately, they still have plans most weekends.
posted by avocado_of_merriment at 9:36 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
We consider ourselves to have a "bucket of risk".
We allocate most of our risk allowance to the kids going to school. This means we do not dine at indoor restaurants, go to indoor play spaces, have indoor playdates (though there is some squish here, with kids in their classrooms who they otherwise see everyday). We otherwise limit risk.
We chose a summer camp that is entirely outdoors. My kids play outdoor sports. We are vaccinated. They also still wear masks to school even if most other kids don't.
It works fine, my kids still see friends all the time and we are running around on the weekend going from activity to activity. Winter is a little trickier, but dressed appropriately, they still have plans most weekends.
posted by avocado_of_merriment at 9:36 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
P.S. Two of us do have Covid right now. So far so good.
posted by warriorqueen at 9:37 AM on July 22, 2022
posted by warriorqueen at 9:37 AM on July 22, 2022
How is everyone so nonchalant about a slide into ill health?
Because ill health happens? Kids got sick before Covid. My oldest kid had been in daycare for over three years before Covid happened, and she's predisposed to certain infections and has some allergies, so I've never been under the impression that good health is in any way a baseline. Covid is really just one more thing the kids could bring home.
And obviously YMMV, but it hasn't been a particularly scary thing they've brought home. We've gotten it twice. The first time was exceedingly mild, neither my wife nor I even had to take sick time at work. My wife lost her sense of taste, but it came back quickly. The second time, I had one rough night with fever and nausea, but it cleared up pretty quickly. My wife didn't even test positive the second time, even though we had been sleeping in the same bed.
It's increasingly clear that, for children and for vaccinated, non-immunocompromised adults, Covid isn't particularly dangerous. It's not nothing, but like, I don't lock myself away because of colds going around, or the flu, or seasonal allergies. Short-term, non-serious illness is just an inconvenience. Obviously, if you're immunocompromised, or if you have other conditions that might make Covid more dangerous to you specifically, that changes the calculus. But especially as more studies come out showing the social and mental health costs of isolation and lockdown, the benefits of sending a healthy, vaccinated kid from a healthy, vaccinated home far outweigh the costs of like, taking a couple sick days, which I'd probably have to do anyway if my kid got a UTI or something.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:38 AM on July 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
Because ill health happens? Kids got sick before Covid. My oldest kid had been in daycare for over three years before Covid happened, and she's predisposed to certain infections and has some allergies, so I've never been under the impression that good health is in any way a baseline. Covid is really just one more thing the kids could bring home.
And obviously YMMV, but it hasn't been a particularly scary thing they've brought home. We've gotten it twice. The first time was exceedingly mild, neither my wife nor I even had to take sick time at work. My wife lost her sense of taste, but it came back quickly. The second time, I had one rough night with fever and nausea, but it cleared up pretty quickly. My wife didn't even test positive the second time, even though we had been sleeping in the same bed.
It's increasingly clear that, for children and for vaccinated, non-immunocompromised adults, Covid isn't particularly dangerous. It's not nothing, but like, I don't lock myself away because of colds going around, or the flu, or seasonal allergies. Short-term, non-serious illness is just an inconvenience. Obviously, if you're immunocompromised, or if you have other conditions that might make Covid more dangerous to you specifically, that changes the calculus. But especially as more studies come out showing the social and mental health costs of isolation and lockdown, the benefits of sending a healthy, vaccinated kid from a healthy, vaccinated home far outweigh the costs of like, taking a couple sick days, which I'd probably have to do anyway if my kid got a UTI or something.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:38 AM on July 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
As a point of anecdata -- my kid has been in in-person pre-school, kindergarten, and camp settings since the most intense COVID restrictions ended in August 2020. The (private) pre-school was way more diligent than the (public) kindergarten about enforcing masks and quarantining, but it is what it is. And while contact tracing hasn't been great and my kid's mask-wearing is worse, despite my best efforts, I've been very very vigilant about administering multiple, spaced-out rapid tests every time he has the faintest symptom of anything, as well as taking him for both clinician and home-administered mail-in PCR tests.
I am very confident that if he had symptomatic COVID, it would have been picked up. And he hasn't. It helped, I suspect, that we were able to get him vaccinated just before the winter/Delta wave hit and that he was boosted shortly before our first plane travel in a year. It has also helped, I think, that every person we eat with indoors is fully vaxxed and boosted (and that means we haven't picked up restaurant indoor dining).
Also anecdatally, none of his pack of similarly-aged friends appears to have caught COVID either, and they've all been doing in-person pre-school and kindergarten. Some are better than others at masking, and some of their parents are more vigilant about testing. But every confirmed COVID case among the group has been brought in by a parent who caught it from a coworker or a parent engaging in a social activity, like going to a concert. The vaxxed kids have not caught it.
posted by joyceanmachine at 9:45 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
I am very confident that if he had symptomatic COVID, it would have been picked up. And he hasn't. It helped, I suspect, that we were able to get him vaccinated just before the winter/Delta wave hit and that he was boosted shortly before our first plane travel in a year. It has also helped, I think, that every person we eat with indoors is fully vaxxed and boosted (and that means we haven't picked up restaurant indoor dining).
Also anecdatally, none of his pack of similarly-aged friends appears to have caught COVID either, and they've all been doing in-person pre-school and kindergarten. Some are better than others at masking, and some of their parents are more vigilant about testing. But every confirmed COVID case among the group has been brought in by a parent who caught it from a coworker or a parent engaging in a social activity, like going to a concert. The vaxxed kids have not caught it.
posted by joyceanmachine at 9:45 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
I wouldn't say that I'm nonchalant, even if I am to some extent resigned to the possibility of getting COVID. I'm angry and scared, but I've consciously chosen not to focus on it. Even if we could homeschool, my stepdaughter's father doesn't believe in COVID and has 50% parenting time, so there are a lot of risks that my partner and I have no control over.
We're doing everything we can to reduce our risk--we're vaccinated, we wear masks in public, we send my stepdaughter to school wearing a mask even though it's not required. It sucks that in the long run it's probably not going to be enough. But we're taking all of the practical measures we can, and giving myself anxiety attacks over things I can't control wasn't making us safer.
posted by threecolorable at 9:49 AM on July 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
We're doing everything we can to reduce our risk--we're vaccinated, we wear masks in public, we send my stepdaughter to school wearing a mask even though it's not required. It sucks that in the long run it's probably not going to be enough. But we're taking all of the practical measures we can, and giving myself anxiety attacks over things I can't control wasn't making us safer.
posted by threecolorable at 9:49 AM on July 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
My understanding is that the vaccines do dramatically reduce severe disease, which is great! They increasingly do not protect against transmission, though that may improve with new vaccines this fall and going forward.
But yeah, you're gonna get it, kindergarten or not.
Our family had been very careful about masking and distancing and hand washing and vaccinating, but we all finally got it about a week after our 3-year old got his first shot, during the current BA.5 wave. We're not sure where it came from, but it wasn't kindergarten or preschool. At least around here, school-based outbreaks seem very rare. In the handful of cases we've personally seen where two or more classmates get sick around the same time, it's not clear the transmission actually happened at school -- more likely they were spending time at each others' homes and passed it on that way.
This recent article in the NYTimes about endemic covid was pretty eye-opening for me. We're either already entering the endemic phase of covid-19, or we'll continue to be in a pandemic for several more years. Covid will remain a significant cause of excess death for years to come, especially among the elderly. Non-infant children will develop a robust immune response to future variants and generally fare better than the rest of us.
It might help to think about all the childhood diseases and dangers that have been dramatically reduced: cars are safer, there's less exposure to toxic materials, and we have great vaccines to protect against things that killed or maimed huge numbers of kids in previous generations. Covid is a new risk, but overall, kids are far safer from accidents and disease than they were 50 years ago.
posted by sportbucket at 9:50 AM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
But yeah, you're gonna get it, kindergarten or not.
Our family had been very careful about masking and distancing and hand washing and vaccinating, but we all finally got it about a week after our 3-year old got his first shot, during the current BA.5 wave. We're not sure where it came from, but it wasn't kindergarten or preschool. At least around here, school-based outbreaks seem very rare. In the handful of cases we've personally seen where two or more classmates get sick around the same time, it's not clear the transmission actually happened at school -- more likely they were spending time at each others' homes and passed it on that way.
This recent article in the NYTimes about endemic covid was pretty eye-opening for me. We're either already entering the endemic phase of covid-19, or we'll continue to be in a pandemic for several more years. Covid will remain a significant cause of excess death for years to come, especially among the elderly. Non-infant children will develop a robust immune response to future variants and generally fare better than the rest of us.
It might help to think about all the childhood diseases and dangers that have been dramatically reduced: cars are safer, there's less exposure to toxic materials, and we have great vaccines to protect against things that killed or maimed huge numbers of kids in previous generations. Covid is a new risk, but overall, kids are far safer from accidents and disease than they were 50 years ago.
posted by sportbucket at 9:50 AM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
We could have lived in 1022, or 1822, or 1922, but we live in 2022. That's our family mantra. We live in 2022.
Worth considering that if we lived in 1822, there would be no vaccines at all, unless you were willing to risk the live smallpox inoculation (which many did despite the dangers). The child mortality rates were awful, and for diseases that these days exist in the U.S. at all primarily because of anti-vaxxers. Every era has its own dangers. That doesn't mean you should be careless or reckless about them (I too am still wearing a mask in indoors public spaces), but...people lived their lives in 1022, 1822, and 1922. Unlike in certain aspects of our exhaustingly stupid era, we are not in apocalyptic territory when it comes to COVID.
(There is a subset of people who mean well but who have reacted, understandably, to the public health failures of this era by seizing on scientific research that is not yet fully vetted or confirmed or that they don't fully understand and flogging it frantically. For your peace of mind, it's best to stay away from that group and try to seek out analysts with at least a more measured approach to just-developing scientific knowledge. For example, the idea that prior infection offers no immune advantages does not seem to line up with the data to date.)
posted by praemunire at 9:51 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
Worth considering that if we lived in 1822, there would be no vaccines at all, unless you were willing to risk the live smallpox inoculation (which many did despite the dangers). The child mortality rates were awful, and for diseases that these days exist in the U.S. at all primarily because of anti-vaxxers. Every era has its own dangers. That doesn't mean you should be careless or reckless about them (I too am still wearing a mask in indoors public spaces), but...people lived their lives in 1022, 1822, and 1922. Unlike in certain aspects of our exhaustingly stupid era, we are not in apocalyptic territory when it comes to COVID.
(There is a subset of people who mean well but who have reacted, understandably, to the public health failures of this era by seizing on scientific research that is not yet fully vetted or confirmed or that they don't fully understand and flogging it frantically. For your peace of mind, it's best to stay away from that group and try to seek out analysts with at least a more measured approach to just-developing scientific knowledge. For example, the idea that prior infection offers no immune advantages does not seem to line up with the data to date.)
posted by praemunire at 9:51 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
As an alternative thought... homeschool actually IS pretty practical, and even reducing the occurrence of the cold-of-the-month is nice. And there are a great many other positives.
We don't actually KNOW how Covid is going to affect us long-term. (Well, some of us are getting an inking.) I've had it four times now, the first two at the just-barely-not-hospitalized level. THREE of those were post full vaccination. I've been dealing with long-Covid symptoms and all sorts of crazy changes to prior health diagnoses since the first bout of Covid.
The part that *really* worries me, though? My three-year-old granddaughter, who lives with me, has been sick with it - ALL of those four times. The first two, she was slightly less ill than me and recovered quicker. The two most recent - Omicron - she was significantly sicker than I was, and it hung around much longer.
To me, that's pretty concerning. Thankfully, son (her dad) is already avidly anti-daycare (which is why I have her) - and, despite attending much more public school than the rest of my kids - regrets that decision due to experiences he had there. (Which includes everything from a lower quality education than his siblings to a school shooting perpetrated by an acquaintance he thought was a "good kid".) And the schools are far worse now.
So there *are* families out there who rearrange their lives around homeschooling and lack of free daycare that public school provides... and did so long before the pandemic. Cutting down the amount of time we spent sick was a bonus, not our purpose. However, if I was doing it now - that would definitely be listed among the reasons.
posted by stormyteal at 9:52 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
We don't actually KNOW how Covid is going to affect us long-term. (Well, some of us are getting an inking.) I've had it four times now, the first two at the just-barely-not-hospitalized level. THREE of those were post full vaccination. I've been dealing with long-Covid symptoms and all sorts of crazy changes to prior health diagnoses since the first bout of Covid.
The part that *really* worries me, though? My three-year-old granddaughter, who lives with me, has been sick with it - ALL of those four times. The first two, she was slightly less ill than me and recovered quicker. The two most recent - Omicron - she was significantly sicker than I was, and it hung around much longer.
To me, that's pretty concerning. Thankfully, son (her dad) is already avidly anti-daycare (which is why I have her) - and, despite attending much more public school than the rest of my kids - regrets that decision due to experiences he had there. (Which includes everything from a lower quality education than his siblings to a school shooting perpetrated by an acquaintance he thought was a "good kid".) And the schools are far worse now.
So there *are* families out there who rearrange their lives around homeschooling and lack of free daycare that public school provides... and did so long before the pandemic. Cutting down the amount of time we spent sick was a bonus, not our purpose. However, if I was doing it now - that would definitely be listed among the reasons.
posted by stormyteal at 9:52 AM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
I was much more scared before Omicron. Now, not so much. Statistically, in most people, it’s mild. In everyone? No. But that has always been the case with any illness. When my kid was two, he brought home hand, foot and mouth from daycare. I caught it from him, was miserable for weeks and had permanent throat damage. From hand, foot and mouth! Permanent damage! Who could have predicted that? So I say this as someone who WAS the outlier. There is only so much you can do. Most people will be fine. In this respect, Covid is like anything else.
posted by ficbot at 9:56 AM on July 22, 2022
posted by ficbot at 9:56 AM on July 22, 2022
Good masks, vaccinated kids, hoping for the best. That's about it.
Ultimately there are illnesses out there that hit kids much harder than covid, and I put my older kids in daycare at 4mo anyway. Disease, and the possibility of severe disease, is a fact of life and a fact of childhood. That you haven't been forced to confront this before kindergarten makes you highly unusual. Appreciate that your child has grown so big without having to get such as much as most kids get sick by 5 years old. It's a blessing.
posted by potrzebie at 10:04 AM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Ultimately there are illnesses out there that hit kids much harder than covid, and I put my older kids in daycare at 4mo anyway. Disease, and the possibility of severe disease, is a fact of life and a fact of childhood. That you haven't been forced to confront this before kindergarten makes you highly unusual. Appreciate that your child has grown so big without having to get such as much as most kids get sick by 5 years old. It's a blessing.
posted by potrzebie at 10:04 AM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Even before COVID, kids get sick in elementary school a lot. Stomach viruses, the flu, colds, strep throat. You should be prepared for that.
In my kids' school, we gave up on masks in school because in general young kids don't wear them well, teachers are 50/50 between wearing them well and forgetting, and kindergartners are not required to wear them at all.
As to whether COVID is 'like the flu' or not, I guess that really depends on your specific instance of it. If anyone in my household has gotten it, it's been less than the normal flu, but that's just anecdotal.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:05 AM on July 22, 2022
In my kids' school, we gave up on masks in school because in general young kids don't wear them well, teachers are 50/50 between wearing them well and forgetting, and kindergartners are not required to wear them at all.
As to whether COVID is 'like the flu' or not, I guess that really depends on your specific instance of it. If anyone in my household has gotten it, it's been less than the normal flu, but that's just anecdotal.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:05 AM on July 22, 2022
You can do a lot by making sure your kiddo has a good quality, well-fitting K95 mask and knows the importance of keeping it on. You have time now to finesse your child's mask-wearing skills before school starts.
Our child did Kindergarten and 1st grade in person before vaccines and did not get covid. He has continued not to get covid while at summer camp where masks are no longer required and only about 40% of the other kids are wearing them. I suspect it's because he is great at keeping it on all day, and on properly - i.e., over both his nose and mouth. We check the fit is tight enough before he leaves the house. He is comfortable wearing it even if he's the only person in the room with one on.
ps It helps if you get a mask they find 'cool looking', whatever that is... for our adorable little goth weirdo that means a mask that is black, "like Death!"
posted by EllaEm at 10:29 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
Our child did Kindergarten and 1st grade in person before vaccines and did not get covid. He has continued not to get covid while at summer camp where masks are no longer required and only about 40% of the other kids are wearing them. I suspect it's because he is great at keeping it on all day, and on properly - i.e., over both his nose and mouth. We check the fit is tight enough before he leaves the house. He is comfortable wearing it even if he's the only person in the room with one on.
ps It helps if you get a mask they find 'cool looking', whatever that is... for our adorable little goth weirdo that means a mask that is black, "like Death!"
posted by EllaEm at 10:29 AM on July 22, 2022 [5 favorites]
Make the masks fun too. My friend puts her 7 year old in these masks (scroll down for the kids' ones).
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 10:41 AM on July 22, 2022
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 10:41 AM on July 22, 2022
I don't have the qualifications to weigh in on how seriously/not seriously to take COVID with kids in the mix, but on the off chance this is useful information for you, my understanding is the Flo mask is the Cadillac of kid's masks and would run about $1 a school day after the initial start up cost based on their guidelines of 8 hours per filter for kids.
posted by foxfirefey at 10:42 AM on July 22, 2022
posted by foxfirefey at 10:42 AM on July 22, 2022
I don't have a lot of advice about starting school for the first time during the BA 2.5 variant - no one does, it's new. We avoided COVID during preschool (some masks, mostly no masks on kids) and kindergarten (masks indoors until the very end when mask requirements were lifted and a *bunch* of the kids got omicron one after the other) and summer camp (mostly outdoors with masks worn indoors) during the last 2+ years, and covid just hit us in the last few weeks via a 1:1 outdoor playdate with a child who tested positive later that evening. We live in an area with pretty good masking protocol and pretty good vaccination rates for adults and kids. We've gotten through our bout with it fine so far in our household.
That said, just a fair warning: If your child has not been in organized care until now, your child and then your whole household is going to get sick a lot. Like think a lot and then add to that. Even if you avoid COVID, you're going to be like "WTF, my kid is sick every two weeks!" Even pre-Covid, parents enter organized childcare and say, "OMG, I thought my kid was so hale and sturdy but we're sick 3 times every month." In the world of Covid, this means you're going to be testing and wondering all the time. So just prepare now for the fact that you're probably going to have a kid at home at least once a month, likely for 3-4 days at a time, and probably more often until early spring. It will get better, but have a plan.
posted by vunder at 11:49 AM on July 22, 2022 [9 favorites]
That said, just a fair warning: If your child has not been in organized care until now, your child and then your whole household is going to get sick a lot. Like think a lot and then add to that. Even if you avoid COVID, you're going to be like "WTF, my kid is sick every two weeks!" Even pre-Covid, parents enter organized childcare and say, "OMG, I thought my kid was so hale and sturdy but we're sick 3 times every month." In the world of Covid, this means you're going to be testing and wondering all the time. So just prepare now for the fact that you're probably going to have a kid at home at least once a month, likely for 3-4 days at a time, and probably more often until early spring. It will get better, but have a plan.
posted by vunder at 11:49 AM on July 22, 2022 [9 favorites]
This NYTimes OpEd: I’m a Virologist, and I’m Setting the Record Straight on Variants and Reinfections is a bit of a rebuttal to the "everyone is going to get repeatedly infected, regardless of vaccination or prior infection, and those reinfections are going to guarantee you get Long COVID at some point" rhetoric that's been flying around lately. From the first paragraph:
I'm another one who has had post-infection sequelae - I had rheumatic fever, an autoimmune response to strep infection, as a teenager. I had neurological symptoms at the time (they lasted for months), which cleared up with treatment; I still have a heart murmur almost 30 years later, although it's not severe enough to restrict my activity in any way (I don't even have to take antibiotics before I go to the dentist anymore).
IDK, we all get disabled eventually one way or another, unless we die too fast to notice. Best be ready for it whether it's from COVID or something else.
posted by mskyle at 1:36 PM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Are we seeing the emergence of entirely new coronavirus variants that are impervious to immunity from vaccines and previous infections? If we keep getting reinfected, is it inevitable that most of us will end up developing long Covid?By all means take as many precautions as you can! I think everyone agrees that it's better to not get COVID than it is to get COVID, whether it's your first infection or a reinfection. But current research does not indicate that reinfection is an automatic key to lifelong disability.
In short, the answer is no.
I'm another one who has had post-infection sequelae - I had rheumatic fever, an autoimmune response to strep infection, as a teenager. I had neurological symptoms at the time (they lasted for months), which cleared up with treatment; I still have a heart murmur almost 30 years later, although it's not severe enough to restrict my activity in any way (I don't even have to take antibiotics before I go to the dentist anymore).
IDK, we all get disabled eventually one way or another, unless we die too fast to notice. Best be ready for it whether it's from COVID or something else.
posted by mskyle at 1:36 PM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
This will be us when our baby starts daycare next month. Nobody in the facility is masked, even visitors. We aren't nonchalant at all about it at all (actually really freaked out about it, after being what most would call excessively cautious for 2 years) but there's not much we can do either. One of us quitting our job isn't a reasonable option for us, and there's not really any way we can lower the chance of catching it there. So we just have to accept that we'll finally catch it soon, I guess.
posted by randomnity at 1:38 PM on July 22, 2022
posted by randomnity at 1:38 PM on July 22, 2022
Response by poster: Just as an FYI for future posters, the 'covid is just a cold' folks can move along.
We have an acquaintance whose teenage varsity athlete had covid 2 years ago and can no longer manage a long walk. All the evidence is showing that the variants are evolving transmissibility with no strong sign of lack of virulence. And maybe it's only 2-10% of people who end up with long covid (Nature study), but that's still a dice roll I don't want to take with my one and five year olds.
(some of the advice here has been really helpful tho, keep that part of it coming)
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 2:39 PM on July 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
We have an acquaintance whose teenage varsity athlete had covid 2 years ago and can no longer manage a long walk. All the evidence is showing that the variants are evolving transmissibility with no strong sign of lack of virulence. And maybe it's only 2-10% of people who end up with long covid (Nature study), but that's still a dice roll I don't want to take with my one and five year olds.
(some of the advice here has been really helpful tho, keep that part of it coming)
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 2:39 PM on July 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
Best answer: For practical recommendations:
Out of the legit hundreds of dollars that we have spent and the dozens of models that we tried out, my not-great-with-masks kindergartener likes these best, which happily also provided the best seal I've had of any mask and were highly recommended by the Times in their roundup of kid masks.
Handwashing the masks isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and they've stood up surprisingly well to all kinds of kid abuse. Because these are soft and comfortable against his face, he will happily wear these for hours on end, especially if they're fresh out of the package. (Back when more people were masking, these were sold out for months at a time and when it was time for us to go to the airport, I may have broken out one (1) that I had hoarded for just this purpose.)
The disposable masks we've had the best luck with these, but he likes these way less than his unfortunately expensive HappyMasks.
We also found accessories to be important -- mask lanyards helped our kid not lose them halfway through the school day, although we had to do some testing and refinement to find ones that worked. We found out that lanyards with snap fastenings worked better than ones with metal clips that rubbed against and irritated the skin on his neck/behind his ears, and that having an adjuster button in the middle was actually detrimental, because it hung down his back, so when he leaned back in his school chair, it was uncomfortable.
Adjusters were also vital in providing better fit, especially on disposable masks. Knots worked OK in a pinch, but they irritated the back of my kid's ears. The sliding adjusters also allow for more fine-grained control. The hairpin-like thing to get them on is clutch; some kits come with them, and there are also special purpose-built tools, but regular drugstore hairpins have worked fine for me.
posted by joyceanmachine at 3:14 PM on July 22, 2022
Out of the legit hundreds of dollars that we have spent and the dozens of models that we tried out, my not-great-with-masks kindergartener likes these best, which happily also provided the best seal I've had of any mask and were highly recommended by the Times in their roundup of kid masks.
Handwashing the masks isn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and they've stood up surprisingly well to all kinds of kid abuse. Because these are soft and comfortable against his face, he will happily wear these for hours on end, especially if they're fresh out of the package. (Back when more people were masking, these were sold out for months at a time and when it was time for us to go to the airport, I may have broken out one (1) that I had hoarded for just this purpose.)
The disposable masks we've had the best luck with these, but he likes these way less than his unfortunately expensive HappyMasks.
We also found accessories to be important -- mask lanyards helped our kid not lose them halfway through the school day, although we had to do some testing and refinement to find ones that worked. We found out that lanyards with snap fastenings worked better than ones with metal clips that rubbed against and irritated the skin on his neck/behind his ears, and that having an adjuster button in the middle was actually detrimental, because it hung down his back, so when he leaned back in his school chair, it was uncomfortable.
Adjusters were also vital in providing better fit, especially on disposable masks. Knots worked OK in a pinch, but they irritated the back of my kid's ears. The sliding adjusters also allow for more fine-grained control. The hairpin-like thing to get them on is clutch; some kits come with them, and there are also special purpose-built tools, but regular drugstore hairpins have worked fine for me.
posted by joyceanmachine at 3:14 PM on July 22, 2022
When our government and schools effectively stopped even attempting to minimize spread (no masks, no contact tracing, full classrooms, required to attend school/ work even if someone in the family is sick, etc.) I had to decide whether I wanted to completely isolate myself and my family like we did back in March 2020 or if I wanted to keep participating in society. I decided that participating in society was more important to us than keeping our COVID risk low.
I am still a lot more careful than most people (I don't eat at restaurants, attend large indoor gatherings, go in stores unmasked, fly in airplanes, etc.) but with my kid in school, I leaned into fatalism. I'm still angry that as a society we're failing to do the things that could reduce risks, but eventually had to shrug and hope that when we get it, we don't suffer long-term effects.
posted by metasarah at 4:05 PM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
I am still a lot more careful than most people (I don't eat at restaurants, attend large indoor gatherings, go in stores unmasked, fly in airplanes, etc.) but with my kid in school, I leaned into fatalism. I'm still angry that as a society we're failing to do the things that could reduce risks, but eventually had to shrug and hope that when we get it, we don't suffer long-term effects.
posted by metasarah at 4:05 PM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
I kept my medically-complex kid in online school when the majority of his peers went back in-person. He did two entire years of online school (part of 1st grade, all of 2nd, over half of 3rd). I worked a demanding IT job from home during that time. It sucked so much.
We sent him back in-person after he was fully-vaccinated (actually waited a little extra until the winter omicron wave ended). Going back to in-person school has been so great for my kid, but I am furious at how the school pretended that COVID did not exist by the end of the year. That said, this is what we did to reduce risk:
- My kid wore a Happy Mask at school every day, even during gym class and speech therapy. He had to take it off at recess in cold weather because it made his glasses fog up.
- If I was notified about events where families were invited to gather in the classroom or the gym for a concert or whatever, I pulled him out of school for that time. Unfortunately, they had a bunch of end of year school assemblies that I didn’t know about in advance, but we escaped unscathed.
- They had an indoor school carnival/fundraiser one evening that was a super-spreader event. Luckily I never considered attending.
- I built a Corsi-Rosenthal air filter box for home in case one of us got sick. My son got sick once during in-person school, so we turned on the air filter, cracked the windows, and wore masks indoors. He tested negative 6 days in a row, and no one else got sick, so we assume he had some other kind of virus.
As for this fall, I am also feeling that sense of impending COVID doom. I ordered a Flo mask with a halo head strap for my son and hope he’ll wear it as well as he wears his Happy Masks. My husband has to work in a laboratory, and he’s looking at upgrading from N95s to an elastomeric mask. As for other areas of risk reduction, we still don’t eat at restaurants, we don’t do indoor play dates, we still do as much curbside pickup as possible, we insist on rapid tests if traveling family members want to hang out with us indoors, and we always schedule the first doctor/dentist appointment of the day (and my son has dental cleanings in the private procedure room instead of the open office space). I can’t think of anything else to do at this point - we are still definitely the most locked down household out of anyone I know, but I really really really want to keep my kid out of the hospital (we’ve spent enough time there pre-COVID).
posted by Maarika at 5:31 PM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
We sent him back in-person after he was fully-vaccinated (actually waited a little extra until the winter omicron wave ended). Going back to in-person school has been so great for my kid, but I am furious at how the school pretended that COVID did not exist by the end of the year. That said, this is what we did to reduce risk:
- My kid wore a Happy Mask at school every day, even during gym class and speech therapy. He had to take it off at recess in cold weather because it made his glasses fog up.
- If I was notified about events where families were invited to gather in the classroom or the gym for a concert or whatever, I pulled him out of school for that time. Unfortunately, they had a bunch of end of year school assemblies that I didn’t know about in advance, but we escaped unscathed.
- They had an indoor school carnival/fundraiser one evening that was a super-spreader event. Luckily I never considered attending.
- I built a Corsi-Rosenthal air filter box for home in case one of us got sick. My son got sick once during in-person school, so we turned on the air filter, cracked the windows, and wore masks indoors. He tested negative 6 days in a row, and no one else got sick, so we assume he had some other kind of virus.
As for this fall, I am also feeling that sense of impending COVID doom. I ordered a Flo mask with a halo head strap for my son and hope he’ll wear it as well as he wears his Happy Masks. My husband has to work in a laboratory, and he’s looking at upgrading from N95s to an elastomeric mask. As for other areas of risk reduction, we still don’t eat at restaurants, we don’t do indoor play dates, we still do as much curbside pickup as possible, we insist on rapid tests if traveling family members want to hang out with us indoors, and we always schedule the first doctor/dentist appointment of the day (and my son has dental cleanings in the private procedure room instead of the open office space). I can’t think of anything else to do at this point - we are still definitely the most locked down household out of anyone I know, but I really really really want to keep my kid out of the hospital (we’ve spent enough time there pre-COVID).
posted by Maarika at 5:31 PM on July 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don’t know. Kind of resigned to it. We have two kids, one is starting kindergarten this September. Our plan is for them to get a booster right before that starts. Our youngest we’re doing our best to pick a day care which prioritizes safety.
We’ve always tried to avoid indoor places and avoid crowds and wear KN95s inside, probably going some indoor place about once a week for the experiences. We would love if people wore masks and took it more seriously but not many are anymore. Our oldest just had a week long half day introduction to the school and everyone else was unmasked. Our kid would wear it but it’d be rough for them from a social perspective to be literally the only one wearing one. So yeah just kind of resigned to that we’ll all be fully vaxxed and boosted by the time school starts so what can you do?
Though I will say I think the idea in this thread of a box fan air filter is a great one and I’ll be looking to make some and donate them if necessary.
posted by cali59 at 6:53 PM on July 22, 2022
We’ve always tried to avoid indoor places and avoid crowds and wear KN95s inside, probably going some indoor place about once a week for the experiences. We would love if people wore masks and took it more seriously but not many are anymore. Our oldest just had a week long half day introduction to the school and everyone else was unmasked. Our kid would wear it but it’d be rough for them from a social perspective to be literally the only one wearing one. So yeah just kind of resigned to that we’ll all be fully vaxxed and boosted by the time school starts so what can you do?
Though I will say I think the idea in this thread of a box fan air filter is a great one and I’ll be looking to make some and donate them if necessary.
posted by cali59 at 6:53 PM on July 22, 2022
Best answer: Some of the things that have given me some peace of mind about necessary exposure are:
- Not giving in to fatalism, and maintaining all our other precautions (always masking indoors, no eating inside restaurants, testing before indoor socializing, etc), because even if I have to increase my risk in one area I still have the power to reduce it in others
- Testing everyone in my household a couple times a week, or every single day we have symptoms of any kind (very important now, as people aren’t testing positive until day 3 or 4 or 5 of symptoms)
- Being logistically prepared for a positive, including having cold supplies, lots of masks, air purifiers, an isolation plan, and being more on top of general household chores (not letting the pantry go bare, keeping ahead of the laundry, etc) so there’s more slack if an adult is taken out of commission. It might also make sense to plan for who might be able to isolate (masked!) with your child in the event they do test positive, to try to prevent transmission to the adults as much as possible. (In your shoes I would also probably explain this plan to my kid, as much as they could understand, so they understand that their routine might change for awhile and it doesn’t come out of nowhere.)
- And ymmv on this one, but also being emotionally and logistically prepared to do the thing that will most reduce the risk of Long Covid if someone tests positive, which is REST. The less a positive person can do, both physically and mentally, the better odds they have for full recovery. This means being prepared to not cook or clean or work and to have a plan for parenting that will allow everyone as much rest as possible. It also means being prepared emotionally to not be a “good worker” or “superstar parent” or dedicated to your workout—taking off work as long as you can, letting your kid watch unlimited Bluey, letting the house get disgusting, and backsliding on your workouts are going to give you the best chance possible to avoid Long Covid and it will be totally worth it.
For me, knowing that I have thought through my options, am reducing my risk in other areas, and am as prepared as one can be for what happens if the worst happens, has lifted some of the burden of the anxiety carousel and also kept me from throwing up my hands and saying “Screw it, we all get sick and die sometime!” (Which I definitely don’t believe, but Anxiety Brain can make me reckless when it gets exhausted.) I know if I do get sick I have done everything I reasonably can to prevent and prepare, and there’s a good chance I won’t pass it on to the rest of my household. (And that isn’t Pollyanna—when my partner got Covid in April, we slept in separate rooms, ran air purifiers 24/7, and masked in common areas, and I never tested positive.)
But it’s also just plain true that parents have been put in an impossible position, and it completely sucks. I wish you so much care.
posted by CtrlAltDelete at 8:06 PM on July 22, 2022 [11 favorites]
- Not giving in to fatalism, and maintaining all our other precautions (always masking indoors, no eating inside restaurants, testing before indoor socializing, etc), because even if I have to increase my risk in one area I still have the power to reduce it in others
- Testing everyone in my household a couple times a week, or every single day we have symptoms of any kind (very important now, as people aren’t testing positive until day 3 or 4 or 5 of symptoms)
- Being logistically prepared for a positive, including having cold supplies, lots of masks, air purifiers, an isolation plan, and being more on top of general household chores (not letting the pantry go bare, keeping ahead of the laundry, etc) so there’s more slack if an adult is taken out of commission. It might also make sense to plan for who might be able to isolate (masked!) with your child in the event they do test positive, to try to prevent transmission to the adults as much as possible. (In your shoes I would also probably explain this plan to my kid, as much as they could understand, so they understand that their routine might change for awhile and it doesn’t come out of nowhere.)
- And ymmv on this one, but also being emotionally and logistically prepared to do the thing that will most reduce the risk of Long Covid if someone tests positive, which is REST. The less a positive person can do, both physically and mentally, the better odds they have for full recovery. This means being prepared to not cook or clean or work and to have a plan for parenting that will allow everyone as much rest as possible. It also means being prepared emotionally to not be a “good worker” or “superstar parent” or dedicated to your workout—taking off work as long as you can, letting your kid watch unlimited Bluey, letting the house get disgusting, and backsliding on your workouts are going to give you the best chance possible to avoid Long Covid and it will be totally worth it.
For me, knowing that I have thought through my options, am reducing my risk in other areas, and am as prepared as one can be for what happens if the worst happens, has lifted some of the burden of the anxiety carousel and also kept me from throwing up my hands and saying “Screw it, we all get sick and die sometime!” (Which I definitely don’t believe, but Anxiety Brain can make me reckless when it gets exhausted.) I know if I do get sick I have done everything I reasonably can to prevent and prepare, and there’s a good chance I won’t pass it on to the rest of my household. (And that isn’t Pollyanna—when my partner got Covid in April, we slept in separate rooms, ran air purifiers 24/7, and masked in common areas, and I never tested positive.)
But it’s also just plain true that parents have been put in an impossible position, and it completely sucks. I wish you so much care.
posted by CtrlAltDelete at 8:06 PM on July 22, 2022 [11 favorites]
We noticed that about as many young children die in car accidents as die from COVID. We took steps to reduce car trips, as that is a risk that we can reduce that is broadly similar but more in our control. That helps us feel better about the known and unknown COVID risk that we have to tolerate.
I think that this kind of risk analysis could be helpful for a lot of families who are struggling with COVID fears. When COVID risks seem psychologically unmanageable, are there other risks that your family currently tolerates that could be eliminated or mitigated?
posted by Kwine at 11:36 PM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
I think that this kind of risk analysis could be helpful for a lot of families who are struggling with COVID fears. When COVID risks seem psychologically unmanageable, are there other risks that your family currently tolerates that could be eliminated or mitigated?
posted by Kwine at 11:36 PM on July 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
I’ll just respond to your question about being ok with the slide into ill health. People are really really good at convincing themselves that they’ll never be part of the disability community. Secondly, they don’t realize how poor the US system is for supporting people with chronic illness or long term disability
posted by raccoon409 at 3:04 AM on July 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by raccoon409 at 3:04 AM on July 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
And ymmv on this one, but also being emotionally and logistically prepared to do the thing that will most reduce the risk of Long Covid if someone tests positive, which is REST. The less a positive person can do, both physically and mentally, the better odds they have for full recovery.
I am about a week or so out after finally testing negative again. I'm telling everyone this. I believe REST is the MOST important aspect of both getting better while sick with covid and for recovery afterwards. I am still not 100% and rest, complete rest, is the only thing that feels right.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:54 AM on July 23, 2022
I am about a week or so out after finally testing negative again. I'm telling everyone this. I believe REST is the MOST important aspect of both getting better while sick with covid and for recovery afterwards. I am still not 100% and rest, complete rest, is the only thing that feels right.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:54 AM on July 23, 2022
In our school in NJ, school cases have been surprisingly rare after the Dec/Jan wave. The mask mandate was dropped in March and even since then there have been make 3-4 cases in the whole prek-8 school, with about 3 classes per grade. Most kids don't wear masks, about 1-2 kids per classroom do. Our kid wears a mask really well and he hasn't gotten it yet.
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 7:11 AM on July 23, 2022
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 7:11 AM on July 23, 2022
the 'covid is just a cold' folks can move along.I want to gently say that I'm not sure anyone is saying this. What I tried to say is that with vaccines, covid is within the range of standard unavoidable risks in life. We don't talk about this a lot but any high fever or significant viral infection, covid or not, can lead to lifelong symptoms. You might know someone who had this experience; I do.
My reasoning is that
- the precautions necessary to avoid covid exposure are incredibly burdensome, to the level where they are not realistically sustainable on an indefinite timeline
- the current risk for most vaccinated+boosted people is a normal distribution centered between "didn't notice" and "severe flu" (including the small chance of lifelong issues (just like a severe flu))
- while it's possible we'll develop a greatly improved pan-coronavirus vaccine which further reduces the risks, the prevention/treatment situation is unlikely to improve significantly anytime soon
- ...therefore my personal evaluation is that ~4 years of such extreme precautions is worse than taking my chances living a normal, vaccinated life.
posted by daveliepmann at 9:45 AM on July 23, 2022 [8 favorites]
Best answer: I'm an epidemiologist* and some of the advice here is...alarming (*fwiw: incoming prof at Big Name Public Health School, my covid research is cited in CDC guidelines, etc). I don't think I have much new to add beyond what has been said, but just adding my thoughts for emphasis.
Echoing the advice to allocate space to rest, and take the precautions you can to reduce harm. As others have mentioned, masking indoors, avoiding indoor eating when community transmission levels are high, testing before social gatherings, etc. will go a long way, and are not particularly burdensome precautions to take. If somebody in your household tests positive, it is not a guarantee that everyone else will get covid -- increasing ventilation and wearing masks when somebody at home is sick will drastically lower your chances of household transmission.
Vaccines and prior infection do reduce the chance of future infection, although not perfectly. Long covid is real and can be awful -- people who downplay it do not know what they are talking about. It's true we're not all "guaranteed" to eventually get long covid, but it's unclear why some people get it and others don't. So if you understand how awful it can be, it's probably wise to assume that you are also susceptible to developing long covid and prepare accordingly. As it is, we are experiencing a mass disabling event far beyond what would've been considered normal pre-2020, and the profoundly ableist foundations of our society are becoming increasingly visible.
All of which isn't to say you should live your life in anxiety and fear, but that taking reasonable steps to reduce harm will always be worthwhile. It's not a binary choice between isolation and nonchalance, even if many people are choosing nonchalance. I'm sorry that we have to live with this level of uncertainty, and I'm sorry that so many are trying to gaslight us into thinking this is normal and okay.
posted by bongerino at 1:42 PM on July 23, 2022 [12 favorites]
Echoing the advice to allocate space to rest, and take the precautions you can to reduce harm. As others have mentioned, masking indoors, avoiding indoor eating when community transmission levels are high, testing before social gatherings, etc. will go a long way, and are not particularly burdensome precautions to take. If somebody in your household tests positive, it is not a guarantee that everyone else will get covid -- increasing ventilation and wearing masks when somebody at home is sick will drastically lower your chances of household transmission.
Vaccines and prior infection do reduce the chance of future infection, although not perfectly. Long covid is real and can be awful -- people who downplay it do not know what they are talking about. It's true we're not all "guaranteed" to eventually get long covid, but it's unclear why some people get it and others don't. So if you understand how awful it can be, it's probably wise to assume that you are also susceptible to developing long covid and prepare accordingly. As it is, we are experiencing a mass disabling event far beyond what would've been considered normal pre-2020, and the profoundly ableist foundations of our society are becoming increasingly visible.
All of which isn't to say you should live your life in anxiety and fear, but that taking reasonable steps to reduce harm will always be worthwhile. It's not a binary choice between isolation and nonchalance, even if many people are choosing nonchalance. I'm sorry that we have to live with this level of uncertainty, and I'm sorry that so many are trying to gaslight us into thinking this is normal and okay.
posted by bongerino at 1:42 PM on July 23, 2022 [12 favorites]
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posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:23 AM on July 22, 2022 [4 favorites]