Hoping for the best as summer nears

For parents of young children across Connecticut and beyond, there are only two words now that have any real meaning, that offer a legitimate hope for a tolerable near-term future: summer camp.

With school buildings closed for the rest of the academic year and the fall’s restart too far away to realistically contemplate, all eyes have turned to summer vacation and what those long months will have in store. And despite the unrelenting bad news from the coronavirus that has dominated the past three months, there are signs the hot weather could bring something of a respite.

More information has been promised from the state, but around the time school was canceled, state Early Childhood Commissioner Beth Bye announced summer camps in Connecticut could open June 29. “We’ve developed guidelines to ensure added protective measures to reduce the likelihood of exposure to the virus,” she said.

Summer camps are themselves preparing accommodations, with most of the changes the kind that parents would find perfectly acceptable — no family nights, no field trips, no open houses, that sort of thing. Camps are talking about installing more sinks and handwashing stations, and taking campers’ temperatures on a regular basis.

Day camps in theory should have more protections than schools just by virtue of being outside. If parents have to keep their kids home on rainy days, when in other years the children would have crowded inside or under a pavilion for, say, camp crafts day, that seems a small price to pay after months on end keeping them home every day, rain, shine or anything else.

This isn’t just about parents, even though it has been a struggle for many. This is mainly about children who desperately need some interaction with their peers, no matter what the circumstances. The most they’ve been getting in months is a Zoom meeting or Google chat, which are fine but are a long way from in-person encounters they’re used to. Many aren’t even getting that much.

Kids need to run around. They need to see each other. Most of them will likely shrug off the months of confinement without a second thought the second stay-at-home orders are lifted, but under any circumstances, a little time outside would do them some good.

Then there’s the economic factor. There are thousands of parents around the state who are going to be stuck at home regardless of any reopening the governor might order because they have children they need to watch. There aren’t enough babysitters to go around, even if it could be proven safe to invite other people into a home for child care. Summer camp might be the best chance to free up parents to lead the economic reopening everyone is hoping to see.

Still, no one expects it to be simple, and the latest wrinkle could be enough to throw the entire prospect of summer camp into doubt. Three young patients at Yale New Haven Hospital were diagnosed last week with the state’s first cases of a rare inflammatory syndrome associated with COVID-19 that has been linked to at least three children’s deaths in New York, with other cases reported later in the week.

Terrible as it’s been, the one saving grace with the coronavirus pandemic has been that it apparently spares children and most young adults. If that appears to be changing, it will mean wholesale changes in the way we as a society approach reopening and what we judge to be safe.

It’s important not to overreact. The number of cases so far makes the condition affecting children extremely rare. And the underlying facts matter, including whether the patients had other health conditions. It doesn’t make the effect any less tragic, but it would change how we deal with the fallout.

Despite the current optimism, it’s not hard to envision a future where summer camps are mostly canceled and the restart of school in the fall is viewed as doubtful. It’s still a ways off, but that has to be considered the most likely outcome as of now. The best bet for parents hoping for a respite is to expect that in six months we’ll be in roughly the same place we are now, and then be pleasantly surprised if that turns out to be overly pessimistic.