Headaches for parents as seasonal illness collides with COVID-19

It’s a busy Thursday morning at Mai Huynh and Christopher Birkholm’s Minneapolis home as they take out 18-month-old Franny and 3-year-old Clinton.

“Both children returned to daycare last week,” Huyhn said.

But it is a precarious situation.

Since August, Franny and Clinton have had to stay home about six times between the two of them with illnesses that mimic COVID-19. Pointing to Clinton and Franny, Birkholm explained that sometimes it’s a double, triple – even quadruple – whammy.

“He had RSV, but she had RSV, parainfluenza, and rhinovirus – all at the same time,” Birkholm said.

And whenever their kids get sick, Huynh says she and Birkholm have to scramble for COVID testing and childcare, and figure out how to handle labor at the same time.

“When the kids are sick, it’s only those conversations that we’ve turned into negotiations about who should care for the kids,” said Huyhn, who works in an elementary school and has limited flexibility to stay home.

In an age when sniffles can’t be ignored, the ensuing confusion can leave parents at a standstill, juggling difficult logistics: Do they send their children to school when they are sick even though they are? are negative for COVID-19? Who will take time off work to take care of the children? And will another hour of TV to entertain them really ruin them for life?

Viruses ready to spread

A fourth wave of COVID-19 collides with an early start to the RSV season, along with other respiratory viruses that typically occur this time of year, said Mayo Clinic pediatrician Dr Angela Mattke.

It’s a trend that can last for months and could put further strain on an already strapped healthcare system, she said.

“It’s going to make things extremely difficult in these winter months if we see spikes in COVID-19, if we see the flu, we see other viruses circulating like RSV, coronavirus,” Mattke said. “We are going to see a significant influx of sick children going to emergency rooms from doctors’ offices in hospitals.”

The state’s health department says it is seeing 3,000 new cases of COVID-19 per week in children under 12 – a highlight for the pandemic. And many hospitals are at full capacity, including pediatric centers, in part due to an unusual increase in other respiratory illnesses in children.

Many children, including Franny and Clinton Birkholm, were not in school or daycare until August of this year.

Mattke said that because the children have been isolated and masked for so long, they are now exposed to viruses they likely would have encountered earlier – and it is happening all at once.

During the pandemic, there has been an almost complete reduction in viruses like RSV, Mattke said.

“Now we’ve seen relaxed social distancing measures, easing of masking, and so viruses are just ready to spread because we have a lot of people who may never have been exposed to the RSV virus in particular. “she said. “And a lot of kids who haven’t been exposed to other viruses, and that’s why we’re seeing such a big increase in the number of respiratory viruses circulating.”

Who’s next?

In St. Cloud, nurse Breanna Olsen is in the midst of yet another round of child care issues. Her youngest daycare was closed again after a case of COVID emerged among students.

She doesn’t know how long her son will stay at home as more and more children in the same daycare are testing positive.

For now, she and her husband, who is a teacher, are tinkering with care, appealing to grandparents and also taking time off. But that’s difficult because both work in professions that can’t be done from home – and both industries suffer from staff shortages.

“My husband has a fixed number of days off per year, which can be renewed, so he has more than you think for the year,” Olsen said. “And to me, you can only call in a certain number of shifts, and you don’t get your raise next year. So we always say to ourselves, ‘Okay, whose turn is it?’ “

In Huynh and Birkholm’s house, Birkholm usually watches over the children as he already works remotely for an e-commerce company.

Birkholm said he enjoyed spending more time with the children.

“But ultimately I have to work and attend meetings and it’s really hard to do when you have three days in a row of sick children at home,” he said.

Birkholm said even finding a COVID test for her children was eating away at her day. They have to call the doctor every time because their children are too young to do the saliva tests offered at community testing sites.

And then he has to take the kids to the doctor, wait for the results – and even though the COVID tests are free, these doctors’ visits are often paid for.

While Birkholm has taken over much of the custody of the children, Huynh said she feels trapped between two walls of what she describes as self-inflicted guilt: if she’s at work, she feels bad not being able to take care of sick children. If she’s at home, she feels guilty because her school is already understaffed.

“And so it’s just this constant feeling of letting people down,” she said.

Mattke said there are no quick fixes to protect children this fall from COVID-19 and other illnesses. It will be months before COVID-19 vaccines are available to all children under 12.

Testing children for any symptoms – even if it’s just congestion – helps catch cases of COVID early and will go a long way in protecting others from the virus.

And Mattke says the best way to protect children from illness this fall is for anyone who qualifies for a flu and COVID-19 vaccine.

Both, she says, offer powerful protection against disease.