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Are you saying that until young kids can get vaccinated, it is not safe enough to remove shutdown protocols for preschools? Parent of 2 very young kids here bt

Are you saying that until young kids can get vaccinated, it is not safe enough to remove shutdown protocols for preschools? Parent of 2 very young kids here btw - it's been brutal, I feel your pain. Frankly, our kids get enough other diseases from nursery that a months-long scratchy cough doesn't sound too terrifying.

afavour 5y ago
> Are you saying that until young kids can get vaccinated, it is not safe enough to remove shutdown protocols for preschools? I have no idea. I'm not an expert. And no experts seem to be talking. Our preschool recently switched from a 14 day shutdown to 7 day plus negative PCR test to re-enter. At least there's that? > Frankly, our kids get enough other diseases from nursery that a months-long scratchy cough doesn't sound too terrifying. We'll have to agree to disagree there. My kids have never had anything that's lasted for months, the kid I know with the cough was waking up in the middle of the night coughing most nights. No thank you.
- ya_throw 5y ago
  We had RSV do the rounds (twice) where I live, and all of us in our house were quite ill, fatigued, and snotty/coughy for about a month. Our friend's 6 month-old caught it and ended up in hospital. Our youngest also had Croup last year, which is pretty scary if you don't know it. It shows up as a horrible, barking cough, and can make it look like your baby is suddenly struggling to breathe. We panicked and called an ambulance. The little one was just fine, but had the horrible cough (which is much worse at night) for a while. Once our pre-school care re-opened (it was shut for many months after March 2020) and the regular diseases started circulation again, it felt like we were ill for several months, albeit with different diseases. We'd send our kids in on Monday, and wait to see what we'd have for the weekend... I'm not saying this to complain - as I see it, this is the reality of life with the little snot-nosed monsters.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I am in the same boat as you. It is crazy to me that we accepted the risks of every other RSV, influenza, corona, rhino, rota, noro, and whatever other bug going around daycare every week prior to Mar 2020, and still do, but if a COVID 19 is detected, then the whole thing shuts down. Every single one of those kids at drop-off and pickup has a runny nose. I am pretty sure we have an informal agreement amongst all the parents that no one gets their kid tested for COVID. It is one thing to do all this song and dance without an available vaccine, but it has been widely available for over a year.
    - ya_throw 5y ago
      Yep. Sometimes when I air opinions like these, I get the response "but attitudes like that will keep the pandemic and shutdowns going for longer!". It's surprisingly hard to explain that I also don't want my nursery to shutdown if someone merely tests positive for Covid. Personally, I've decided to re-brand "asymptomatic" as "not ill".
      - pasabagi 5y ago
        This sounds like a bad policy on the nursery's part. We have a soft lockdown when somebody has a case: basically, the group who had a positive test is secluded from the other groups and get daily tests.
        ya_throw 5y ago
        We know about "soft lockdowns" too (in fact, it's now just standard practice around here). It's why our kids get less age-appropriate care - for example, they can't mix with the groups who share the same sleeping pattern as they do, and are forced to stick to whatever their "bubble" is doing. To me, this is incredibly developmentally inappropriate.
        pasabagi 5y ago
        Well, pandemics suck, what's new? It's also bad if the kita has to shut down because all the staff are sick. It seems like a good balance to me.
nostrademons 5y ago
The challenge is the lack of data on long-term effects of COVID. Preliminary studies have linked it to cognitive declines [1], diabetes [2], and chronic fatigue [3]. And while death from COVID in a preschooler is about a 1-in-100,000 occurrence, long COVID and other chronic outcomes seem to be much more common. I've heard figures of about 5% or 1 in 20. Few parents would willingly sign their preschooler (or themselves) up for intellectual disabilities, type-1 diabetes, or chronic fatigue syndrome. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7102e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7102e2.htm [3] https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2022/01/08/long-covid-fatigue-and-brain-fog-affecting-many-people-long-after-initial-diagnosis-researchers-find.html https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2022/01/08/lo...
- ya_throw 5y ago
  Where have you heard those figures from? (I assume you are telling me that 5% of pre-schoolers, in your experience, have had chronic outcomes from Covid). Yes, I have seen many preliminary studies linking Covid to many different long-term health problems [1]. Personally, and especially as Covid has been around for over 2 years at this point, I strongly prefer to avoid the obvious long-term damage caused to my kids by the disruption of their academic and social development. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/10/01/restless-anal-syndrome-affects-man-who-had-covid-19-coronavirus-infection/?sh=7bba68215bf5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/10/01/restless-an...
  - nostrademons 5y ago
    I listed sources in my original comment. From the first link, they observed 4.8% of lab-confirmed cases exhibited continuing symptoms, and the average effect on cognitive performance was 0.47 standard deviations (equivalent to about 8 IQ points, or roughly the effect of a stroke). The CDC study has some methodological problems (detailed in nradov & DannyCasolaro's sibling posts), but previous meta-analyses have documented similar effects; they covered only severely-ill patients, but came up with a pooled proportion of 14%. Chronic fatigue is reported as a symptom 6 months following in 46% of cases [2], but again, that study is for adults. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/11/18/1055071699/coronavirus-faq-what-is-long-covid-and-what-is-my-risk-of-getting-it https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/11/18/1055071... [2] https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/6/760 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/6/760

afavour 5y ago

> Are you saying that until young kids can get vaccinated, it is not safe enough to remove shutdown protocols for preschools? I have no idea. I'm not an expert. And no experts seem to be talking. Our preschool recently switched from a 14 day shutdown to 7 day plus negative PCR test to re-enter. At least there's that? > Frankly, our kids get enough other diseases from nursery that a months-long scratchy cough doesn't sound too terrifying. We'll have to agree to disagree there. My kids have never had anything that's lasted for months, the kid I know with the cough was waking up in the middle of the night coughing most nights. No thank you.

ya_throw 5y ago
We had RSV do the rounds (twice) where I live, and all of us in our house were quite ill, fatigued, and snotty/coughy for about a month. Our friend's 6 month-old caught it and ended up in hospital. Our youngest also had Croup last year, which is pretty scary if you don't know it. It shows up as a horrible, barking cough, and can make it look like your baby is suddenly struggling to breathe. We panicked and called an ambulance. The little one was just fine, but had the horrible cough (which is much worse at night) for a while. Once our pre-school care re-opened (it was shut for many months after March 2020) and the regular diseases started circulation again, it felt like we were ill for several months, albeit with different diseases. We'd send our kids in on Monday, and wait to see what we'd have for the weekend... I'm not saying this to complain - as I see it, this is the reality of life with the little snot-nosed monsters.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I am in the same boat as you. It is crazy to me that we accepted the risks of every other RSV, influenza, corona, rhino, rota, noro, and whatever other bug going around daycare every week prior to Mar 2020, and still do, but if a COVID 19 is detected, then the whole thing shuts down. Every single one of those kids at drop-off and pickup has a runny nose. I am pretty sure we have an informal agreement amongst all the parents that no one gets their kid tested for COVID. It is one thing to do all this song and dance without an available vaccine, but it has been widely available for over a year.
  - ya_throw 5y ago
    Yep. Sometimes when I air opinions like these, I get the response "but attitudes like that will keep the pandemic and shutdowns going for longer!". It's surprisingly hard to explain that I also don't want my nursery to shutdown if someone merely tests positive for Covid. Personally, I've decided to re-brand "asymptomatic" as "not ill".
    - pasabagi 5y ago
      This sounds like a bad policy on the nursery's part. We have a soft lockdown when somebody has a case: basically, the group who had a positive test is secluded from the other groups and get daily tests.
      - ya_throw 5y ago
        We know about "soft lockdowns" too (in fact, it's now just standard practice around here). It's why our kids get less age-appropriate care - for example, they can't mix with the groups who share the same sleeping pattern as they do, and are forced to stick to whatever their "bubble" is doing. To me, this is incredibly developmentally inappropriate.
        pasabagi 5y ago
        Well, pandemics suck, what's new? It's also bad if the kita has to shut down because all the staff are sick. It seems like a good balance to me.

nostrademons 5y ago

The challenge is the lack of data on long-term effects of COVID. Preliminary studies have linked it to cognitive declines [1], diabetes [2], and chronic fatigue [3]. And while death from COVID in a preschooler is about a 1-in-100,000 occurrence, long COVID and other chronic outcomes seem to be much more common. I've heard figures of about 5% or 1 in 20. Few parents would willingly sign their preschooler (or themselves) up for intellectual disabilities, type-1 diabetes, or chronic fatigue syndrome. [1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7102e2.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7102e2.htm [3] https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2022/01/08/long-covid-fatigue-and-brain-fog-affecting-many-people-long-after-initial-diagnosis-researchers-find.html https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/2022/01/08/lo...

ya_throw 5y ago
Where have you heard those figures from? (I assume you are telling me that 5% of pre-schoolers, in your experience, have had chronic outcomes from Covid). Yes, I have seen many preliminary studies linking Covid to many different long-term health problems [1]. Personally, and especially as Covid has been around for over 2 years at this point, I strongly prefer to avoid the obvious long-term damage caused to my kids by the disruption of their academic and social development. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/10/01/restless-anal-syndrome-affects-man-who-had-covid-19-coronavirus-infection/?sh=7bba68215bf5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2021/10/01/restless-an...
- nostrademons 5y ago
  I listed sources in my original comment. From the first link, they observed 4.8% of lab-confirmed cases exhibited continuing symptoms, and the average effect on cognitive performance was 0.47 standard deviations (equivalent to about 8 IQ points, or roughly the effect of a stroke). The CDC study has some methodological problems (detailed in nradov & DannyCasolaro's sibling posts), but previous meta-analyses have documented similar effects; they covered only severely-ill patients, but came up with a pooled proportion of 14%. Chronic fatigue is reported as a symptom 6 months following in 46% of cases [2], but again, that study is for adults. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/11/18/1055071699/coronavirus-faq-what-is-long-covid-and-what-is-my-risk-of-getting-it https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2021/11/18/1055071... [2] https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/6/760 https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/6/760