Taking care of children under 5 during the latest Covid-19 outbreak
When she turned 47 on January 10, however, the festivities were practically nonexistent.
There was good reason for the change in plans: The college professor in Patchogue, New York, has a 13-month-old daughter. Because there’s no vaccine approved for babies that young, because cases of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 are rising precipitously across the United States, and because experts are once again recommending that people avoid gathering in groups, Wiener-Bambara didn’t want to take any chances.
“It didn’t feel much like a birthday,” she said. “Since Christmas, my daughter Lily hasn’t seen anyone except me and my husband, but her not getting sick is most important.”
Wiener-Bambara certainly isn’t the only grown-up ditching plans to keep babies and toddlers safe right now. Across the country, parents, grandparents and even teenagers who share households with children under age 5 find themselves making similar sacrifices.
Just like they have for nearly two years.
As we approach the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, there’s still no vaccine approved to protect children under age 5. This demographic is just as vulnerable as they were when the pandemic started. This means their parents and loved ones are just as worried as ever. It also means the grownups in these kids’ lives are angry, stressed out and totally overwhelmed.
“So many parents were just starting to breathe a sigh of relief after having their older kids being eligible for vaccination,” said Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health. “Instead, we find ourselves in the middle of a viral blizzard, with an extremely contagious variant, and it’s one of the most dangerous times for young kids in this pandemic.”
Keeping guard up
Wen doesn’t just think about the public health implications around Covid-19 and how it’s affecting the mental health of parents with young kids — she lives it every day.
For these reasons, Wen said her family will continue taking precautions, such as wearing face coverings in public, avoiding indoor settings where they and others are unmasked, testing themselves and friends before intimate gatherings in private homes, and minimizing travel to cut back on risk.
The spike is potentially bad news for kids, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“The sheer volume of infections because of its profound transmissibility will mean that many more children will get infected,” Fauci said last week at a White House briefing.
Overwhelming, overwhelmed
This news has rankled parents of those children who would qualify for the under-5 vaccine. These parents say they’re tired and stressed. Since some of them have never stopped social distancing, they’re also going a little stir-crazy.
Take Maggie Christopher. The 35-year-old resident of Stow, Ohio, has two children — a 6-year-old boy who is fully vaccinated and a 3-year-old who is not. Her older son was exposed to Covid-19 on the day he got his second shot, and Christopher and her husband bent over backward to keep their children separate and make sure the boys didn’t cross paths for five days at home.
“We came up with an alternating…
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