Parents and child care providers are once again being asked to respond to an unprecedented health crisis when they thought enduring the 2 years of COVID-19 was the worst.
Little did they know that North Carolina was about to enter the "worst years for pediatric illness in recent history," as the school year began and the cases of RSV, flu and COVID-19 surged simultaneously, The News & Observer reported.
Beth Branciforte, director of Branches Community School, thought the days of nose swabs and outbreaks were behind her small preschool in Durham when COVID-19 vaccines were approved for young children last June.
Parents sighed in relief as she announced the lifting of strict rules during the height of the pandemic. She was looking forward to everything hopeful, expecting that finally, "we can all live a little." Unfortunately, it has been the opposite, she said.
Breaking Point
Day care centers were reported to be hit with wave after wave of respiratory viruses that caused "gaps in staffing and knocked out classrooms of children."
Working parents, on the other hand, scrambled to desperately find child care for their sick children.
In fact, a record number of more than 100 thousand Americans missed work for "child care reasons," according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is even more than during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to 12 News.
"We're all at the end of our rope in terms of needing to do our jobs, but also the reality of how sick kids have been this fall," Branciforte expressed.
Read Also: RSV 'Rampant' in the Country, Doctor Says: Symptoms, Treatments and What Parents Need To Know
Out of control
At Branciforte's day care center, the respiratory viruses started almost immediately in September when the new school year began.
Surprisingly, more children were back at home due to their sickness than ever before, she narrated. The kids would return to school after a week or so of healing from home only to contract yet another virus that has started spreading in the school during their absence.
The school's 12 staff and teachers were out so often because they were either sick or they had to care for their own sick kids, resulting in the school having to increase the amount of paid leave time. In fact, Branciforte said that the school has only been fully staffed for 8 days of the 60 days it has been in session this academic year.
There are 8 infants enrolled at Branches Community School, 4 of them contracted RSV, and 3, including Branciforte's 8-week-old son, needed to go to the hospital for breathing treatments.
Branciforte couldn't help but describe the start of the school year as "wildly out of control."
Infectious disease experts don't yet know the reason behind all these respiratory ailments that have been so tough this year for kids. However, according to Fact Check, some experts said the spike is "most likely caused by an immunity gap that was created by the lack of exposure to the virus over the past couple of years" due to isolation and wearing of masks.
Recently, Branciforte has decided to reinstate the school's stricter sick policies even if she knew it would be unpopular among parents, stating that they are "putting the ball back" in the parents' courts.
Related Article: Parents and Nurses Don't See Eye to Eye on When to Keep Sick Kids Home From School
