Older Virus Movie,solved at Last When Older Man and Baby Avoid Virus
Kindergartner Allyson Zavala joined with other students and school superintendent Austin Buetner for a class selfie in April inside teacher Alicia Pizzi's classroom at Maurice Sendak Elementary School in Northward Hollywood, Calif. Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images hibernate explanation
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Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Kindergartner Allyson Zavala joined with other students and school superintendent Austin Buetner for a class selfie in April inside teacher Alicia Pizzi's classroom at Maurice Sendak Unproblematic School in North Hollywood, Calif.
Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Information technology's inevitable that when kids mix — returning from camp or heading back to schoolhouse — germs spread. And in a pandemic year fueled past the delta variant, some of those germs may crusade COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has communication for keeping your child protected from this highly contagious version of the coronavirus now and this fall: Mask upwardly in schools and other crowded venues, and make sure everyone age 12 and older in the family gets a COVID-19 shot.
But what if your kids are younger than that? What if they develop symptoms or come up into contact with someone who tests positive for the coronavirus?
Rules for testing and quarantining vary from place to place, and then we asked several public wellness experts — all parents — most their personal strategies for keeping their kids and families safe these days.
What do I do if my kid wakes upwards with the sniffles?
Continue your kid at dwelling house and consult the pediatrician.
"This happened to us [recently], for campsite," says Seema Lakdawala, a virologist who studies influenza manual at the University of Pittsburgh. She has two daughters, ages v and 8. "My [8-year-old] girl woke upwards and was sneezing and had a runny olfactory organ."
She kept her daughter dwelling house so called the pediatrician to talk through her symptoms. The probable culprit was allergies, the doc told her; the child has known allergies to grass pollen, and it'south already hay fever season where she lives. Sure enough, when Lakdawala gave her daughter allergy medication, her symptoms resolved.
The central, says Lakdawala, is that her daughter had no known exposures to COVID-19. "If we had been on a plane recently, or otherwise traveling, then I would definitely want to get her tested for COVID," the mom says.
Test for the coronavirus when warranted.
Ahead of those sniffles, while everyone'southward good for you, effigy out where your child and others in your home can get PCR-tested for the coronavirus on short notice with quick results. "Our pediatrician's part, like many pediatric clinics, has walk-in hours for children who are sick," says Dr. Cassandra Pierre, medical director of public health programs at Boston Medical Center and a parent of 3-year-erstwhile twins. "Those hours are in the forenoon, which means my child could become tested and, hopefully, get the results in the same twenty-four hour period."
Keep your kid at home until those test results come back.
Another option is to buy some over-the-counter, rapid antigen tests from the chemist's shop now and keep them in your medicine chiffonier for a time when you might demand them, says Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and researcher at the Johns Hopkins Middle for Health Security. She has two kids, ages 11 and 14. These swab tests are less sensitive than PCR tests (and so they might miss very pocket-sized infections). Just they're quick, piece of cake to use, and considered to be fairly accurate in people who are actively ill. "They certainly provide peace of mind, specially if they're symptomatic," Gronvall says.
Even if those symptoms plow out to be "just a common cold," try not to spread it.
Any your child'south COVID-xix status, delight don't send them back to school if they're nevertheless coughing and sneezing, Pierre says.
Her 3-year-old was home ill from day intendance with a cold the day we spoke with her. "If my son is still sick tomorrow, still stuffy and having nasal secretions, I wouldn't necessarily put him right back and betrayal other children to some other respiratory virus," Pierre says. As difficult as it is to arrange for kid care, the pandemic has driven home to her that "we really rely on the decisions that other people make," she says. "I want to make sure that I'm making good decisions to prevent other children and parents potentially from getting ill."
If kids must render to camp or school or day care with mild cold symptoms, they should wear masks consistently, says Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor at the University of California, San Francisco.
What if my child tests positive for the coronavirus?
"Don't panic," says Pierre. "The first affair to remember is that children are incredibly resilient." Most cases of COVID-19 in children are mild. Keep a close eye on your child and bank check in with the pediatrician, specially if your child has underlying health conditions that may demand monitoring.
Think ahead of fourth dimension about who will take care of whom — and how — if somebody gets sick.
Households are complicated, only think right now about how you could limit the sick child'due south contact with others in your home. Consider how you and other members could all-time divvy up care. Lakdawala and her married man take walked through this scenario. They are both fully vaccinated, but their two children are not nevertheless eligible. If one kid tests positive for the coronavirus, she says, they will split the household into parent-child pairs in dissimilar parts of the house. They might then take turns in the kitchen and minimize the amount of time they're in enclosed spaces with each other.
If your situation requires more than backup, Lakdawala suggests reaching out to fully vaccinated family members, friends or neighbors who may be able to step in and offer aid.
Layer protections to reduce the hazard of household transmission
The primal is to rely on multiple types of protection.
The first defence force is vaccines, Pierre says. "Nosotros really should be thinking well-nigh getting as many people in the household vaccinated as possible to protect themselves, but also to protect the child." Vaccinated people can provide care without needing to quarantine, so long as they remain salubrious, without COVID-19 symptoms.
An older child who is sick with COVID-19 may be able to isolate in a chamber, peradventure with a bathroom to themselves, says Pierre. This limits the presence of the virus to a specific office of the home.
But even if infinite and bathrooms are limited, in that location are proven ways to reduce the risks of transmission.
COVID-xix is primarily transmitted through the air, then Pierre notes that "respiratory hygiene is your No. 1 priority."
If indoor infinite is shared with a ill person, anybody in the house should wear masks as much as possible, says Gandhi. This means at all times, except when eating, drinking and sleeping. For the ill person, this reduces the corporeality of virus they exhale into the air, and for others in the household, information technology limits the amount of virus they breathe in.
Get fresh air into the house to disperse any clouds of virus that may be lingering in the air, Lakdawala advises: "Open the windows, turn on the fans, get some air circulating." Air purifiers could help filter virus out of the air in a closed room, Pierre adds.
Another possible road of transmission is picking up the live virus on your hands and touching your eyes, nose or mouth. And then periodically clean and disinfect shared surfaces such every bit the bathroom counter or kitchen table, particularly if a sick person has been coughing or sneezing nearby, Pierre says. After a few days (the CDC recommends three-5 days subsequently a known exposure), it's a good idea to get the rest of the household tested for the coronavirus.
Keep your kid domicile until they're no longer contagious.
Though asymptomatic infections can spread disease, besides, people with COVID-19 are most likely to spread the infection to others when symptoms get-go appear. So 10 days afterwards, if those symptoms have resolved without the continued use of fever-reducing medicine, the illness is no longer considered contagious, Gronvall says. Sometimes, children develop symptoms such as loss of sense of taste and smell that tin can last longer, "but as far every bit in that location being a danger to others, these symptoms don't need to interfere with them going back to school," she says.
What kind of mask should a child wear?
Habiliment any mask that fits well — with no gaps around the mouth, olfactory organ or chin — and is comfortable. While adults these days are being encouraged to step upwards our mask game across cloth versions, the advice for children may be a piffling different. "The best mask is one that they can wearable for long periods of time, even in school," Pierre says. "A cotton mask is the almost comfortable, lightweight and breathable."
Bonus points if the kids like the pattern. "My kids have the cutest masks," Lakdawala says. "They have the ones that wait similar little cat faces and smiley faces or dogs or bears or whatever." Gronvall's eleven-year-old prefers a mask that is "silky and has pictures of cats in outer infinite that accept lasers coming out of their eyes," and then she has ordered several of those masks to send with him to school. A kid is more likely to article of clothing a mask they find appealing, and to wear it consistently and correctly.
If you want to add more protection, Gandhi suggests wearing two masks, which creates a tighter mask fit on the face, or adding a filter layer to a kid's mask. "You tin buy a material mask with a pocket, and use vacuum pocketbook textile every bit a filter. Information technology's thin and it blocks virus very finer," she says. Still, she agrees that the bottom line with kids is comfort. Then if these interventions make them less likely to wear the mask, she says you can skip them.
Is it OK to hug our kids when they're sick with COVID-19?
The reassurance of physical contact — hugs and cuddles — tin can be important, particularly for fiddling ones, Lakdawala says. "I'grand non going to deny or deprive my child of that comfort when they're not feeling well." And you may feel that way, as well. Just Pierre says that if the kids are older, "I would recommend physical distancing."
Studies suggest that a person with COVID-19 is near infectious in the first five days, so Gandhi says she'd aim to limit close contact in that period. "For the first five days, I'd permit them watch Television receiver and I would endeavor to not exist as cuddly," she says.
"At night, if a child has a fever and needs comfort, that can be difficult," says Pierre. Nobody recommends wearing a protective mask while sleeping, merely if you lot're sharing a bed with a sick child, you might consider facing in the same management from behind them, or away — so they're non breathing directly into your face — and opening up the windows or using air purifiers to help clear the air.
Lakdawala says wearing masks when someone is sick with COVID-19, and, again, divvying upwardly intendance responsibilities between the parents (including hugs), can help reduce the risk that everyone in the household gets sick.
What do I exercise if my child is sent domicile from school after a COVID-19 exposure?
If your child is unvaccinated, quarantine your child, wear masks, watch for symptoms and test.
If the school district provides specific instructions for quarantining, follow that guidance, Pierre says. The CDC has a specific definition for "close contact" between kids in schools, and information technology is more lenient than in other settings: "If your child is physically distancing 3 anxiety from some other kid who's sick and both of them are wearing masks consistently, we would not actually consider that to exist an exposure," says Pierre. "But if that is non what has happened, and then the child needs to be quarantined."
In the house, take reasonable precautions, says Pierre, "simply it'southward not necessarily with the rigor of having to become to your room and stay there," unless your kid develops symptoms or tests positive for the coronavirus. Instead, try to keep some physical distance between the quarantining child and other household members, and accept the child and/or those other family members wear a mask, particularly those who are the most vulnerable and unvaccinated.
In Lakdawala's home, her two children — both too young to be vaccinated — typically share a room. If i were in quarantine, "I would separate them in terms of where they would slumber, but I would probably still send the other one to school if it was merely an exposure," she says.
She would expect a few days and and so get the quarantining kid tested for the coronavirus with a PCR examination. In the acting, she'd watch for symptoms. If no symptoms develop or the test comes dorsum negative, it'due south fine to resume all the usual activities after seven to 14 days, depending on your schoolhouse's policy.
And while the kid in quarantine is staying home, Lakdawala says, the rest of the household can continue on with essential business — school, work, grocery shopping and the like — with some precautions. The whole family should refrain from playdates or dinners out and habiliment masks in public, indoor settings.
NPR editor and producer Jane Greenhalgh and correspondent Rob Stein contributed reporting to this story.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/08/10/1025663559/how-to-keep-your-child-safe-from-the-delta-variant
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