One week ago, I wrote this story for @TorontoStar about #COVID19 risk in daycares. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/04/14/with-covid-19-rising-in-daycares-in-covid-hot-spots-if-you-can-keep-your-kids-home-now-is-the-time.html

A few hours after my story went online, I learned my 2-year-old daughter had tested positive for COVID-19. Her likeliest exposure was her daycare.

Long+personal thread:

We're one of those families that never really left lockdown. Nobody's entered our home home since March 2020. We get groceries delivered. I haven't seen my parents since Feb 2020. Last spring, I made the painful decision not to attend my own brother's wedding in Alberta.

I've lived like this partly because of my job. I've spent hours talking to a teen whose mother died; a PSW who was at one point homeless; health workers breaking down in tears; people who nearly died. It's hard to *not* do the very most, when you hear these stories every day.

But I've also lived like this to make up for the risk we *are* taking and can't avoid: daycare.

Without child care, I couldn't have reported on COVID-19 for the past year. Minimizing our contacts is how we can make our daycare safer for everyone, both kids and staff.

I spent most of the past year at peace with our daycare decision. I can see the herculean efforts our incredible staff are making to keep things safe. Our kid is happier, and my husband and I have been able to work while maintaining some semblance of sanity.

But in the last few weeks, things changed. More of my friends were pulling their kids from daycare; everyone else was considering it.

I pitched a story about daycares to try and help parents navigate this agonizing choice. And, if Im being honest, to help myself navigate it too

Last Tuesday morning, I was rushing to daycare drop-off because I was supposed to interview @janinemccready & didn't want to miss her call. As they do every morning, daycare staff took my daughter's temperature. But for the first time, she had a fever. We were sent home.

I was surprised; she seemed fine! I hustled her home in a daze and booked her a COVID test while my husband booked the day off work. I interviewed Dr. McCready, reported my story, and finished my work day around 10 p.m.

After I filed my story, something Dr. McCready said kept ringing in my ears:

'If people are in a privileged position, I’d recommend keeping (kids) home right now,' she told me. 'I think it’s at a level where if you can keep your kids home ... now is the time.”

My husband and I talked again about whether we should pull our kid from daycare. Are we privileged enough? Is now the time for us?

The next morning, we checked our daughter's test result: "COVID-19 virus detected." We later learned she screened positive for a VOC, likely B.1.1.7

We'll never know how she got infected. But I know her daycare friends & staff are the only people she interacts with outside of our household. We never bring her into stores, rarely to playgrounds. And so far, my husband and I have both tested negative.

What's life like right now? We're double-masking 24/7 in the house with a KN95 and surgical mask. The windows are open all day to improve ventilation, which means wearing toques and multiple sweaters indoors (today's snowfall isn't helping).

We eat our meals separately, sleep in different rooms, disinfect constantly, and hand wash to the point where our skin is cracked and bleeding. I spent a day clearing our unfinished basement of junk, boxes and dead millipedes, just in case one of us need to move down there.

Eight days into this, our daughter seems okay & I think we will be too. But the stress of living with COVID in your own home — the threat of infection hanging over your head like a guillotine — is hard to convey. I've had a tightness in my chest since last Wednesday.

The thing that really makes me feel sick is knowing our family is now part of a chain of infections that could kill or hospitalize another person. When I heard there was a 2nd confirmed case at our daycare, I cried almost as much as I did when our daughter tested positive.

I worry about her daycare friends & their families. I also worry about the daycare staff, who have not yet been prioritized for vaccination, even as we've kept daycares open across Ontario and demanded that these women (the ECEs at my daycare are all women) continue going to work

Over the last week, my daughter has coughed in my face, ripped off my mask, licked her finger and wiped it on me, cried to be held. I know this is what our daycare workers deal with every day on the job — only with 10 toddlers at a time, instead of one.

I despair for parents, esp those who truly can't afford to pull their kids. And even for those who can — it's such a tortured choice because it will never be validated. You'll never know if you dodged that bullet; only that you voluntarily made your life harder and more miserable

And I really despair for anyone who's gone/going through this, but without our many privileges. We have so many friends sending us food; meanwhile, I can't stop thinking about another parent my TPH case worker told me about, who had to break quarantine to go to the food bank.

I might write more later, just keeping my head above water for now. I apologize for stepping away this week and hope to be back reporting soon.

I'll just end by linking again to this @COVIDSciOntario roadmap, for how we can beat this terrible 3rd wave:

https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/sciencebrief/fighting-covid-19-in-ontario-the-way-forward/