Keeping Your Children Safe from Coronavirus (COVID-19)

With Coronavirus or COVID-19 as it’s otherwise known sweeps the world at the moment, it’s understandable if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed and a bit stressed with everything that’s going on. The purpose of this article is to looks at what is the coronavirus and how you can protect your children from coronavirus.

What is the Coronavirus (COVID-19)?

We’ll try keep this simple as we think the World Health Organisation does a great job of explaining. Coronavirus and COVID-19 while interconnected are actually slightly different things.

Coronaviruses are basically a family or viruses which generally occur in humans and animals. Common characteristics of the coronavirus are symptoms which we’re seeing today with mild respiratory infections like your common cold all the way to pneumonia.

COVID-19 is the strain of the coronavirus. If you imagine conronavirus to be someone’s surname then COVID-19 is their first name. We’re not sure if that analogy works but we kind of like it! Either way though, COVID-19 was only recently discovered in Wuhan, China in December 2019.

What Are Some of the Early Signs of Coronavirus?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, some of the early signs that children can experience when they have the coronavirus include:

• High temperature/fever
• Runny nose
• Cough
• Gastrointestinal symptoms (vomiting and diarrhea) 

If your child is displaying any of the above symptoms, we’d recommend giving your local doctor a call prior to going in. You may find your doctor will refer you to your nearest hospital testing clinic which allows the virus to be better contained and avoid spreading.

Is the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dangerous to my Children?

Generally we’re seeing the danger of coronavirus being higher with our elderly population.  There’s still a lot we don’t know about the coronavirus but experts are finding that the virus is a much more milder infection to what is experienced with adults or older people.

Kids Health note that at present time, the measles and the flu are actually a bigger risk than the coronavirus to your kids so make sure your up to date with your vaccines!

How do I Safeguard my Family Against Coronavirus?

Don’t be afraid to talk to them about coronavirus. While it might feel like there’s still a lot unknown about the virus, there’s also a lot that we do now do know about it and how we can protect ourselves from catching it.

Give your children ample opportunity to ask your questions about it so you can avoid them from feeling frightened and anxious. But at the same time, it’s important to give them visibility around what’s being done to help keep them safe. This can be reassuring and help provide comfort for them.

There’s lots of ways you can protect your child from the coronavirus and we’d recommend putting in place routines that help safeguard against the virus. Some tips we’d recommend for safeguarding against the coronavirus include:

• Maintain strict hygiene. Perhaps even suggest to your child that they need to begin washing their hands at different parts of the day (e.g. before they eat foo
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Generally your hands come into contact with a lot of germs and if you’ve picked up the coronavirus, this is a quick way to get it if you’re constantly touching your eyes, nose and mouth.
• Know if your child’s friends/family have come into contact with someone who has coronavirus and are now self quarantining themselves.
• Let them stay at home from school if they’re not feeling quite right

Alex

My name’s Alex and I’m a husband, dad to beautiful identical twin boys, cyclist, photographer and connoisseur of great coffee!

Help I’m Having Twins has been created for me to share what I found useful as a new parent and dad to twins.