How parents and kids can stay safe and sane during the coronavirus pandemic
To slow the spread of the coronavirus, society is becoming much less social. Public areas are emptying, businesses are shutting down, and schools and day cares are closing. Parents are struggling to navigate this new way of isolated family life, often with imperfect information. Here’s what we do know: The virus behind the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, can infect children. Kids under 10 are just as likely as adults to become infected from a person in the home, a study of transmission in Shenzhen, China suggests. For reasons that remain mysterious, kids carrying the virus are less likely to get sick than adults. Of about 2,500 U.S. COVID-19 cases reported as of March 16, only 5 percent were in people aged 19 and younger. None died, but children aren’t out of the woods. “Kids do better than adults, but they can still get sick,” says Sean O’Leary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. And COVID-19, the disease that the coronavirus...