Summer might be less of a bummer
Summer planning has long been a vexing and expensive puzzle for many parents, who use a mishmash of camp, family help and cobbled-together vacation days to cover child care. Now, for a second year, parents have virus concerns to pile atop that heap of issues, yet children still need to be occupied between June and September.
First, a bit of good news from infectious-disease specialists.
“I think things are not as dire this summer,” said Peter Hotez, a director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. “We have a lot to be optimistic about.”
The United States will finally have an adequate supply of adult vaccines by the summer, Hotez said, and we can go into it knowing that a good chunk of parents and camp counselors will be protected — though older children will most likely not start getting vaccinated until late summer, at the earliest. ( Vaccine trials for children as young as 6 are just beginning.)
The wild card is the new variants of the virus.
“States are starting to open up, so we could see a resurgence” with the new strains, said Sean O’Leary, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases. “If that were to happen, that really changes things.”
Knowing that, how do you make choices for your family this summer? Here are some tips.
■ When weighing a choice, think about the alternative.
Whether you’re considering sending your children to camp or summer school, or having them spend time with newly vaccinated family members, think about what the alternative is, said Emily Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University and a creator of the COVID-19 School Response Dashboard. For school, the alternative is remote school. If the summer option is camp, what would your children be doing otherwise? What are the benefits and drawbacks for your family?
This year it’s important to weigh social and emotional development alongside virus risks if your kids are in elementary school and have been remote since March.
“Another summer of remote school, even if it lets your kid move forward in math, may have less value than a summer of digging in the dirt,” Oster said.
■ Check out health guidelines.
The American Academy of Pediatrics maintains a list of suggested camps, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention give guidelines for camps and youth programs. Both lists can help you assess in-person activities for your kids and give you questions to ask about safety procedures. How big are the groups of kids? Do they mix with children outside their group? What if there is a case of COIVD-19 at camp? In what circumstances will there be masking?
■ Sleep-away camp is risky, but it’s still an option.
Even last summer, some sleep-away camps stayed open. O’Leary said the CDC studied COVID in several camp settings in Maine and Georgia, with very different outcomes.
Four overnight camps in Maine had no infections during six to eight weeks using the following safety measures: prearrival quarantine; pre- and post-arrival testing and symptom screening; kids in small pods without exposure outside those groups; use of face coverings; physical distancing; and maximal outdoor programming.
At a camp in Georgia, where kids did not wear masks while doing a variety of indoor and outdoor activities, including group singing and cheering in proximity, there was a major COVID-19 outbreak. Testing for about 60% of campers and counselors from the first day of camp until 14 days afterward showed 76% were positive.
If you send a child to overnight camp, make sure its protocol is like the camps in Maine, not Georgia.
■ “Beware the Ides of March.” Both Hotez and O’Leary emphasized that the United States is not out of the woods yet. The drop we are seeing in infections and deaths may surge back up because of the new virus variants. If we want to plan the best summer for our families, we need to stay vigilant for the near term while more adults are being vaccinated.
“We have a lot to look forward to,” Hotez said, “but it’s going to be a terrible spring.”