Back to school has been a major stress
You would think we'd have a better handle on this pandemic by now
It started last week with my daughter coming home with a sore throat, which we watched closely. Soon after, she started coughing, and that's when I called a local nursing agency. While there are plenty of places to test for COVID, there's a whole other level of convenience involved in being able to book a test at 8 p.m. and have a nurse at my door at 8 a.m. the following day to check my daughter before school.
Thankfully, she tested negative.
With much of our focus on vaccinations these days, I had forgotten about how frustrating and worrying it is to wonder, at the first sign of a cough or sore throat, whether a loved one has been infected by this dreaded virus. But it seems that other dreadful viruses are going around right now. I feel like almost everyone I know has had someone in their home get tested for COVID in recent weeks simply because of symptoms that can be mistaken for COVID.
Parents have a lot to be worried about right now, from COVID outbreaks in schools to the fact children under 12 don't yet have access to the vaccine. Schools have returned to full capacity — without bubbles. And it seems they're also contending with germs and viruses that typically spring up at this time of year. It feels like it's all quickly devolving into a perfect storm.
And if you're a person who works from home, and your kids are with you because they're sick, well, that just adds to the challenge of working remotely. I have had to do my share of rearranging and juggling as a result of my daughter missing school.
I had to take her to see a doctor after her negative COVID result, and I have since caught the virus she oh-so-lovingly shared with me. I had to do a COVID test myself before seeing a doctor for treatment.
For appointments that cannot be changed, I've been carrying around that piece of paper indicating my negative COVID result. Likewise I inform everyone I anticipate seeing about my symptoms and the fact that I tested negative. The nurse who did my COVID test told me she wished others would be as diligent as I have tried to be in informing people around me of my symptoms — sore throat, cough, runny nose — before seeing them or rescheduling plans as needed.
Sending our kids to school is important for their emotional, mental and social well-being. Unfortunately, it has come at a worrying cost, with rising COVID cases among unvaccinated youth and, from what I hear and see, the spreading of other viruses. Friends who are nurses and doctors, as well as the doctors at the local walkin clinic, say they are seeing lots of cases right now.
Clearly our government and public health authorities consider this an acceptable price for returning to a sense of normalcy, but I worry about people who might get COVID or some other nasty virus because their kids bring them home from school. I know of four cases in the past couple of weeks in which parents have caught COVID from their unvaccinated children.
We are in the fourth wave of this pandemic. The Delta variant has made things more challenging, and who knows what other virus mutations might emerge. It's good that kids are back at school, but I wonder whether we're doing everything reasonably possible to keep them and, by extension, the rest of us, safe. Perhaps the return of class bubbles should be considered. And while I'm relieved that rapid tests are being deployed in schools, I see no reason why this couldn't have been done sooner.
You would think, 19 months into it, we'd have a better handle on this pandemic.