@@ November thread - covid/rsv/flu and general

[pixy0stix]

The children's hospital situation around the country seems pretty dire - www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/health/childrens-hospital-beds-delayed-care-long-waits/index.html

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/21/rsv-children-hospital-capacity/

[karinothing]

Man our hospitals need a break (also worried about the kids, but poor healthcare workers). My friend's son has been in the hospital since Friday for RSV/Flu. His oxygen is just getting worse

[pixy0stix]

Nov 2, 2022 11:02:53 GMT -5 karinothing said:

Man our hospitals need a break (also worried about the kids, but poor healthcare workers). My friend's son has been in the hospital since Friday for RSV/Flu. His oxygen is just getting worse

I hope he recovers. Poor kid.


I'm seeing the restart of the arguments about sending kids to school while sick because of childcare and work issues, vs keeping them home so they don't infect other kids. People are falling into the same lines as they did with covid, and I just don't think the risks are equal.

[karinothing]

Nov 2, 2022 11:08:50 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Nov 2, 2022 11:02:53 GMT -5 karinothing said:

Man our hospitals need a break (also worried about the kids, but poor healthcare workers). My friend's son has been in the hospital since Friday for RSV/Flu. His oxygen is just getting worse

I hope he recovers. Poor kid.


I'm seeing the restart of the arguments about sending kids to school while sick because of childcare and work issues, vs keeping them home so they don't infect other kids. People are falling into the same lines as they did with covid, and I just don't think the risks are equal.

I wish I had a better idea of where the line was. I mean my kids can have coughs for weeks. I don't know what day is the day they aren't infectious? Obviously, I would never send with a fever, not clear to me when kid becomes non contagious though (although I think its after 5 days for the flu). BUT then again if my kid has the flu I might never know because I might not get him tested. 


ANOTHER thing, I am sure someone is tracking this, but I would be very curious about kids with previously covid infections and current severity of respiratory illness. I had covid in June. It was mild, felt like a bad cold. But had a cough for over a month. In early August I got another respiratory infection (not covid) and my body could not recover. I went to urgent care and my Oxygen was in the low 90s (enough to worry them). I am sure it was because I had just had covid. 

[noodleoo]

Ugh, it is scary. I needed to get DD2 in to the pedi for an ear infection. I called Monday at 8:30 AM and they were already booked for almost the whole day. They had 2 appts left at 5:20 and 5:40 PM! I was able to get in to another location earlier thankfully, but WOW I don't remember them being that booked up since the omicron Covid surge.

DD2 is already on her second virus and 1st ear infection of the season. It is going to be a bad year for illness and I'm not looking forward to it. We all got her cold and are miserable.

[wawa]

Nov 2, 2022 11:30:58 GMT -5 karinothing said:

Nov 2, 2022 11:08:50 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I hope he recovers. Poor kid.


I'm seeing the restart of the arguments about sending kids to school while sick because of childcare and work issues, vs keeping them home so they don't infect other kids. People are falling into the same lines as they did with covid, and I just don't think the risks are equal.

I wish I had a better idea of where the line was. I mean my kids can have coughs for weeks. I don't know what day is the day they aren't infectious? Obviously, I would never send with a fever, not clear to me when kid becomes non contagious though (although I think its after 5 days for the flu). BUT then again if my kid has the flu I might never know because I might not get him tested. 


ANOTHER thing, I am sure someone is tracking this, but I would be very curious about kids with previously covid infections and current severity of respiratory illness. I had covid in June. It was mild, felt like a bad cold. But had a cough for over a month. In early August I got another respiratory infection (not covid) and my body could not recover. I went to urgent care and my Oxygen was in the low 90s (enough to worry them). I am sure it was because I had just had covid. 

I struggle with this too.  My kids both caught a cold a month ago and they're both still coughign occasionally (they were tested for both covid and flu, so pretty sure it was in fact a plain old cold, but who knows).  I kept them home if they had a fever or were just....sickly.  Like droopy, low energy, etc.  They've both been home for 2-3 days over the past month when the cold was at it's height. They each ran a fever for a day, and Sizzli got pinkeye to boot. But if they're chipper and just have a nagging cough?  off they go, with a mask, because I don't know what else to do.  I can't keep them home for a month and I have no other metrics to go off of.  But then other people are like, "unless you actively have a 100+ degree fever you're gongi to school, have a nice day" and that's obviously not right either.   And ALSO even in our formerly very mandate compliant area, they're basically one of a handful of kids wearing a mask on those days, so they're probably not leaving it on all day and nobody besides me is asking them to.  the "right' answer is in there somewhere, but I feel like I'm guessing every time.

and then someone I know has a fresh new baby who's in the hospital for observation right now because their sibling brought home RSV and the baby's breathing was getting ugly.  So...yeah.  That's exactly the kind of thing I worry about when I send a coughing kid out into the world. It's not good out there.  (for the sake of other people's anxiety - the docs say the baby is doing well)  (edited to remove some details.)

[Jalapeñomel]

My daughter had coxsackie two weeks ago and now has RSV and pneumonia . She had human metapneumovirus and pneumonia and was hospitalized for two days in July as well. It’s fucking awful.

There’s a run on amoxicillin too.

thehill.com/policy/healthcare/3714724-fda-reports-shortages-of-amoxicillin/amp/

[pixy0stix]

Nov 2, 2022 11:30:58 GMT -5 karinothing said:

Nov 2, 2022 11:08:50 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

ANOTHER thing, I am sure someone is tracking this, but I would be very curious about kids with previously covid infections and current severity of respiratory illness. I had covid in June. It was mild, felt like a bad cold. But had a cough for over a month. In early August I got another respiratory infection (not covid) and my body could not recover. I went to urgent care and my Oxygen was in the low 90s (enough to worry them). I am sure it was because I had just had covid. 

Yeah, I also wonder about this. If we're paying the price for being so cavalier about kid's covid since it didn't seem to hit them as hard.

[scsarah]

Nov 2, 2022 11:08:50 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Nov 2, 2022 11:02:53 GMT -5 karinothing said:

Man our hospitals need a break (also worried about the kids, but poor healthcare workers). My friend's son has been in the hospital since Friday for RSV/Flu. His oxygen is just getting worse

I hope he recovers. Poor kid.


I'm seeing the restart of the arguments about sending kids to school while sick because of childcare and work issues, vs keeping them home so they don't infect other kids. People are falling into the same lines as they did with covid, and I just don't think the risks are equal.

I'm dipping my toe into CE&P here, but I've been lurking for a while.

My son is 8, and in a district that uses daily attendance for funding. He's had 50 days of school (they celebrated last week), and we've kept him home for 7 of those days due to illness (two days for fever and recovery, and a week for a cold that he could not kick). Last week, we got a notice home from school that he was at risk of being reported truant because of "chronic" absences. 

I get that the school's hands are tied due to funding...but this is such awful policy, and makes me feel like I need to be sending him to school even when he's not 100% just so the school can get the funding they need (they are in need of any funding they can get).

I talked to the principal, and he made the point that this is a district mandate, and also a state law, and to take it up with them, and I will - but also, isn't this exactly what we want to get away from post-Covid? Why are we still pushing attendance as a measure of anything related to funding?

[aspentosh]

It's brutal.

DD had a cold (COVID and Flu negative multiple times) that took her out of school for three days and kept her exhausted for almost two weeks. One random Saturday around noon, after doing nooooothing, she told me she felt like she'd run a marathon. She'd never been hit that hard. I made an "emergency" pediatrician for it because she was making me so nervous and he just said it was a random UR thing. FWIW, we have not had COVID here.

[Jalapeñomel]

Nov 2, 2022 12:29:07 GMT -5 scsarah said:

Nov 2, 2022 11:08:50 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I hope he recovers. Poor kid.


I'm seeing the restart of the arguments about sending kids to school while sick because of childcare and work issues, vs keeping them home so they don't infect other kids. People are falling into the same lines as they did with covid, and I just don't think the risks are equal.

I'm dipping my toe into CE&P here, but I've been lurking for a while.

My son is 8, and in a district that uses daily attendance for funding. He's had 50 days of school (they celebrated last week), and we've kept him home for 7 of those days due to illness (two days for fever and recovery, and a week for a cold that he could not kick). Last week, we got a notice home from school that he was at risk of being reported truant because of "chronic" absences. 

I get that the school's hands are tied due to funding...but this is such awful policy, and makes me feel like I need to be sending him to school even when he's not 100% just so the school can get the funding they need (they are in need of any funding they can get).

I talked to the principal, and he made the point that this is a district mandate, and also a state law, and to take it up with them, and I will - but also, isn't this exactly what we want to get away from post-Covid? Why are we still pushing attendance as a measure of anything related to funding?

Funding is tied to attendance? No wonder kids are encouraged to go to school sick from all angles.

[Poeticxpassion]

DS is sick. Many kids in his school have been diagnosed with RSV. There were over 25 kids in the waiting room at the children's hospital that they were turning people away unless the kid has trouble breathing.

Our district also has the policy of only missing 5 days before being reported. I asked our school secretary about it and she said "Covid is over, so we are going back to the usual attendance policy." I was so angry. DH said f$&k it and we will keep DS home when we need to. I'm immunocompromised, so we have to be super careful. Such a BS policy.

[scsarah]

Nov 2, 2022 12:49:45 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Nov 2, 2022 12:29:07 GMT -5 scsarah said:

I'm dipping my toe into CE&P here, but I've been lurking for a while.

My son is 8, and in a district that uses daily attendance for funding. He's had 50 days of school (they celebrated last week), and we've kept him home for 7 of those days due to illness (two days for fever and recovery, and a week for a cold that he could not kick). Last week, we got a notice home from school that he was at risk of being reported truant because of "chronic" absences. 

I get that the school's hands are tied due to funding...but this is such awful policy, and makes me feel like I need to be sending him to school even when he's not 100% just so the school can get the funding they need (they are in need of any funding they can get).

I talked to the principal, and he made the point that this is a district mandate, and also a state law, and to take it up with them, and I will - but also, isn't this exactly what we want to get away from post-Covid? Why are we still pushing attendance as a measure of anything related to funding?

Funding is tied to attendance? No wonder kids are encouraged to go to school sick from all angles.

Yep - apparently we are one of six (or seven) states to still use this funding model. It also means that at last week's celebration, students with 0-2 absences were given an "award". Of course, as I was told, an absence is an absence, no differentiation made for illness, so a bunch of kids lost out on whatever that award was.

It's wrong on so many fronts, as we all know.

[Jalapeñomel]

Nov 2, 2022 14:05:38 GMT -5 scsarah said:

Nov 2, 2022 12:49:45 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Funding is tied to attendance? No wonder kids are encouraged to go to school sick from all angles.

Yep - apparently we are one of six (or seven) states to still use this funding model. It also means that at last week's celebration, students with 0-2 absences were given an "award". Of course, as I was told, an absence is an absence, no differentiation made for illness, so a bunch of kids lost out on whatever that award was.

It's wrong on so many fronts, as we all know.

I had to go look at this archaic practice and found this tied to funding:

Average Daily Attendance (ADA)

California, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas

I’m surprised California is in there.

We do it by annual enrollment, which makes the most sense…I guess.

Regardless, this is shit as you’ve said.

[icedcoffee]

It's super hard to know where the line is. RSV in especially small kids is really bad. It always has been. And part of what makes it so hard is that for some kids and most adults it's legit just a cold.

Even just last year our daycare had a huge issue with RSV and it wasn't until daycare reported that they had like 7 kids test positive for RSV that I realized there's a very high chance my kid was patient zero 2 weeks earlier. Except for him it was legitimately a mild cold.

Anyway--I'm really looking forward to the RSV vaccines they're working on. The current state of hospitals is scary.

[sonrisa]

Nov 2, 2022 12:49:45 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Nov 2, 2022 12:29:07 GMT -5 scsarah said:

I'm dipping my toe into CE&P here, but I've been lurking for a while.

My son is 8, and in a district that uses daily attendance for funding. He's had 50 days of school (they celebrated last week), and we've kept him home for 7 of those days due to illness (two days for fever and recovery, and a week for a cold that he could not kick). Last week, we got a notice home from school that he was at risk of being reported truant because of "chronic" absences. 

I get that the school's hands are tied due to funding...but this is such awful policy, and makes me feel like I need to be sending him to school even when he's not 100% just so the school can get the funding they need (they are in need of any funding they can get).

I talked to the principal, and he made the point that this is a district mandate, and also a state law, and to take it up with them, and I will - but also, isn't this exactly what we want to get away from post-Covid? Why are we still pushing attendance as a measure of anything related to funding?

Funding is tied to attendance? No wonder kids are encouraged to go to school sick from all angles.

Yes. And also school ratings.

Our schools push it hard since chronic absenteeism a big factor for the California school performance and accountability. 

A kid counts as "absent" if they are late, leave early or leave midday for something like a doctor's appointment. And a kid counts as a "chronic absentee" if they do so once every two weeks.

My kid has been sick one day, late one day because they forgot their iPad and had to go home to get it, late another day to get their spacers, and missed part of two other days to get their braces and fix a broken bracket. Altogether, less than two full class days missed. Still chronically absentee.

We have a covid shot scheduled next week (Kaiser only offers those during school hours around us) and a dentist appointment next month, so I don't see this ending any time soon - even if she only takes one actual sick day all year. 

[fancynewbeesly]

DD2 has been running a fever since FRIDAY. We want to urgent care on Sunday. Negative for flu. Strep. And COVID. Over the weekend her fever was 105. Today it went down to 102. 😩 I got an appointment today at the pediatrician so we will see what they say. I am SO frustrated. 😩

[fancynewbeesly]

Funding used to be tied to attendance in NJ too. I don’t know if it still is. But I know recently it was.

[winemaker06]

Nov 2, 2022 15:08:22 GMT -5 fancynewbeesly said:

DD2 has been running a fever since FRIDAY. We want to urgent care on Sunday. Negative for flu. Strep. And COVID. Over the weekend her fever was 105. Today it went down to 102. 😩 I got an appointment today at the pediatrician so we will see what they say. I am SO frustrated. 😩

My son was negative for all of those things last month and was the sickest I’ve ever seen him with 6 days of fever and cough that turned into bronchitis. An additional swab came up positive for flu, just not Flu A or B originally tested for. But we didn’t get those results until 9 days after his appt, 2 full weeks after he first got sick…
I hope she feels better soon!

[waverly]

DS was out for 3 days for Covid in September. Since it is middle school, it took him forever to make up all that work. Now, we all have colds. I suspect it is RSV, but how do I know since there are no home test kits? I wouldn't tie up doctor time with it since we are seem to be OK, so how do we know if we are spreading RSV or not? I an not around immune compromised individuals or babies/ elderly on a regular basis, but I would avoid seeing them right now just in case. But to take out of school, the school would not really understand this and generally only shuts down if the cases are high in the specific school or specific classroom. DS was hospitalized as a baby with bronchiolitis probably as a result of RSV, so I would definitely stay away from babies or anyone who has a baby. If I had known, I would have probably gotten a nanny that first year instead of the petrie dish that is daycare. And we did 7 years in daycare, so I am pro daycare.  

[abs]

Nov 2, 2022 12:49:45 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Nov 2, 2022 12:29:07 GMT -5 scsarah said:

I'm dipping my toe into CE&P here, but I've been lurking for a while.

My son is 8, and in a district that uses daily attendance for funding. He's had 50 days of school (they celebrated last week), and we've kept him home for 7 of those days due to illness (two days for fever and recovery, and a week for a cold that he could not kick). Last week, we got a notice home from school that he was at risk of being reported truant because of "chronic" absences. 

I get that the school's hands are tied due to funding...but this is such awful policy, and makes me feel like I need to be sending him to school even when he's not 100% just so the school can get the funding they need (they are in need of any funding they can get).

I talked to the principal, and he made the point that this is a district mandate, and also a state law, and to take it up with them, and I will - but also, isn't this exactly what we want to get away from post-Covid? Why are we still pushing attendance as a measure of anything related to funding?

Funding is tied to attendance? No wonder kids are encouraged to go to school sick from all angles.

Yes. To make matters worse in high school final exams are on the line. If you have a B average or better you are exempt from taking them. How can you lose that exemption? By being absent more than 3 days a semester or 5 days a school year.

So. You can imagine what is being spread around in these buildings with 4,000+ students.

[pixy0stix]

We really do teach kids that capitalism is something to die for from an early age, don't we? Tying everything from school funding to their grades to their health and teaching them to ignore being sick.

[StrawberryBlondie]

Nov 2, 2022 12:49:45 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Nov 2, 2022 12:29:07 GMT -5 scsarah said:

I'm dipping my toe into CE&P here, but I've been lurking for a while.

My son is 8, and in a district that uses daily attendance for funding. He's had 50 days of school (they celebrated last week), and we've kept him home for 7 of those days due to illness (two days for fever and recovery, and a week for a cold that he could not kick). Last week, we got a notice home from school that he was at risk of being reported truant because of "chronic" absences. 

I get that the school's hands are tied due to funding...but this is such awful policy, and makes me feel like I need to be sending him to school even when he's not 100% just so the school can get the funding they need (they are in need of any funding they can get).

I talked to the principal, and he made the point that this is a district mandate, and also a state law, and to take it up with them, and I will - but also, isn't this exactly what we want to get away from post-Covid? Why are we still pushing attendance as a measure of anything related to funding?

Funding is tied to attendance? No wonder kids are encouraged to go to school sick from all angles.

It is here too, but in a little different way. It's tied to annual enrollment, but then there's also some sort of daily attendance thing. Growing up, that meant that we had a lot of days that should've been snow days where school opened 2 hrs late and closed 2 hrs early. Because a snow day would've meant a loss of funding.

[Bad Dingo]

I know I sound like a broken record but masks. Good masks. Wear them, especially when you are sick and around other people.

Hugs and healing thoughts to everyone who's sick.

[penguingrrl]

Nov 2, 2022 14:20:42 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

It's super hard to know where the line is. RSV in especially small kids is really bad. It always has been. And part of what makes it so hard is that for some kids and most adults it's legit just a cold.

Even just last year our daycare had a huge issue with RSV and it wasn't until daycare reported that they had like 7 kids test positive for RSV that I realized there's a very high chance my kid was patient zero 2 weeks earlier. Except for him it was legitimately a mild cold.

Anyway--I'm really looking forward to the RSV vaccines they're working on. The current state of hospitals is scary.

RSV is downright sneaky. When my oldest was 2.5 and my youngest was 5 months they both got RSV. My oldest ended up with a 3 day hospitalization and asthma diagnosis from it, we only knew my younger one had it because she was with us at the doctor’s office when I took her older sibling and they swabbed her, too, just in case. Her only symptom was a slightly runny nose that I thought was weather-related. Even within the same household, it can present so differently.

[mala]

Little kid had covid in August, came down with what we assume waz RSV mid october, which developed into a secondary bacterial pneumonia. There's whole story and context I'll add when I'm at a keyboard, but it suuuuuucked. Thats all i have to add right now

[Jalapeñomel]

Nov 2, 2022 15:36:40 GMT -5 waverly said:

DS was out for 3 days for Covid in September. Since it is middle school, it took him forever to make up all that work. Now, we all have colds. I suspect it is RSV, but how do I know since there are no home test kits? I wouldn't tie up doctor time with it since we are seem to be OK, so how do we know if we are spreading RSV or not? I an not around immune compromised individuals or babies/ elderly on a regular basis, but I would avoid seeing them right now just in case. But to take out of school, the school would not really understand this and generally only shuts down if the cases are high in the specific school or specific classroom. DS was hospitalized as a baby with bronchiolitis probably as a result of RSV, so I would definitely stay away from babies or anyone who has a baby. If I had known, I would have probably gotten a nanny that first year instead of the petrie dish that is daycare. And we did 7 years in daycare, so I am pro daycare.  

Definitely go to the doc and get the swab!

[grover]

I teach middle school and even my smallest class of only 11 students hasn't had a full class day at all this year. Then add that the handful of kids wearing masks daily aren't wearing them correctly... and everyone is tired, and stressed. My own 3 young kiddos (2 preschoolers and a kinder student) have already missed 6 days between 2 of them. I'm worried about this winter season.

[chickadee77]

Nov 2, 2022 11:08:50 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Nov 2, 2022 11:02:53 GMT -5 karinothing said:

Man our hospitals need a break (also worried about the kids, but poor healthcare workers). My friend's son has been in the hospital since Friday for RSV/Flu. His oxygen is just getting worse

I hope he recovers. Poor kid.


I'm seeing the restart of the arguments about sending kids to school while sick because of childcare and work issues, vs keeping them home so they don't infect other kids. People are falling into the same lines as they did with covid, and I just don't think the risks are equal.

I *think* I'm agreeing with you here. I've always been understanding (though not "pro") of kids going to school a little sick. Covid-sick vs cold-sick ate two different animals to me. Even if the symptoms are similar, the potential long-tern effects are not.

Being a working parent sucks in the US.

[chickadee77]

Nov 2, 2022 12:49:45 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

Nov 2, 2022 12:29:07 GMT -5 scsarah said:

I'm dipping my toe into CE&P here, but I've been lurking for a while.

My son is 8, and in a district that uses daily attendance for funding. He's had 50 days of school (they celebrated last week), and we've kept him home for 7 of those days due to illness (two days for fever and recovery, and a week for a cold that he could not kick). Last week, we got a notice home from school that he was at risk of being reported truant because of "chronic" absences. 

I get that the school's hands are tied due to funding...but this is such awful policy, and makes me feel like I need to be sending him to school even when he's not 100% just so the school can get the funding they need (they are in need of any funding they can get).

I talked to the principal, and he made the point that this is a district mandate, and also a state law, and to take it up with them, and I will - but also, isn't this exactly what we want to get away from post-Covid? Why are we still pushing attendance as a measure of anything related to funding?

Funding is tied to attendance? No wonder kids are encouraged to go to school sick from all angles.

The brief amount of time dd1 went to school (we switched to homeschooling during covid) it was drilled into the kids that attendance was waaaaaay more important than anything, including health and performance. My conclusion was to follow the $$$. Granted, this was in FL.