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Uptick in illnesses since lockdown has eased?

16 replies

gemsam7015 · 30/06/2021 13:41

Hi all, my 2yo daughter started nursery in July last year and from then until April, has escaped with a few minor colds and coughs and one other illness I can think of which sort of came and went in less than a week.
However, since April, she's been ill at least twice a month with coughs and colds and tonsillitis and ear infections. I expected this when she first started but not now!
Interestingly, I have seen several articles recently about A&E being swarmed with children with mild illnesses this summer close to what they would expect at peak winter levels.
Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing this? I know her immune system has to build up and will take a battering at some point but I hate it!

OP posts:
Shapesorted · 30/06/2021 13:45

I'm a childminder and for the last 4 weeks I've had at least one child off each day with some illness or another. Chicken pox, colds, fevers, croup, chest infections, ear infections. Everything! They are all so poorly! It's not even necessarily from here, some have got ill across periods of time off too.

insancerre · 30/06/2021 13:48

We’ve noticed it too in our nursery
Chest infections, croup, chicken pox and mumps as well as runny noses and upset tummies
It’s like the children are now being exposed to other people and have to build in their immunity again

insancerre · 30/06/2021 13:49
  • build up
Daisy829 · 30/06/2021 13:54

Yep as pp said we all need to build our immunity up again kids included. Could be a tricky Autumn/winter

gemsam7015 · 30/06/2021 14:09

Thanks all! At least it's sort of semi normal.

@Daisy829 I agree - this could be a bad winter...

OP posts:
whatswithtodaytoday · 30/06/2021 14:21

Yup, same here. Ill every couple of weeks, usually passes it to me too. He was fine last year when nurseries reopened. There's an outbreak of chicken pox at our nursery.

gemsam7015 · 30/06/2021 14:29

@whatswithtodaytoday Yep I think I'm coming down with whatever this latest one is! Doesn't help that I'm 12 weeks pregnant and due in January, right in the middle of the true winter bug season Confused
Cannot wait until she's old enough to understand exactly what hurts and why and that the doctors are only trying to help when they want to prod and poke you...

OP posts:
user1471523870 · 30/06/2021 14:57

I could have written this post!
Glad it's not just my feeling that it seems we are starting nursery from scratch all over again. My boy is almost 3 and he's been going to nursery from when he was 9 months. The first 3-4 months were horrendous, but then picking up bugs become rare. Then Covid happened and he was rarely ill....until around March/April I think. We started jocking around the fact he was ill every single Friday, just in time for the weekend. Then it got even worse around April, when he's been off for a week on two occasions. May has been relatively ok. We took him off the nursery for almost the whole month of June for unrelated reasons but we know there have been several cases of chickenpox while he wasn't there. He returned last week and was off sick again two days later (and has been until yesterday!).

Please, immune system, come back!

SpikeDearheart · 30/06/2021 15:11

My 16 month old has had croup twice in the last 6 weeks, plus at least two other colds. I can't remember the last time he slept well as every night he has a cough or blocked nose Sad

Thegirlhasnoname · 30/06/2021 15:16

West Yorkshire here and definitely seen this in my daughters nursery. It’s like when she first started and had a runny nose for (what seemed like) the first six months

Even the staff have said that you can tell things are opening back up because it’s just been a revolving door of bugs after almost a year of nothing

GiveMeNovocain · 30/06/2021 15:20

Thank goodness we're starting to get them back to normal. It'd be awful if we kept delaying only to face this in winter. Hope they're immune system is boosted and back to normal soon. It must be so tricky for parents of little ones

Daisy829 · 30/06/2021 17:09

My friend works at a local hospital & they are seeing a lot of young kids coming in with respiratory illnesses because they’ve lost their immunity. At least the hospitals aren’t over run with covid in our area atm so they can get treated.

@GiveMeNovocain that’s a really good point. I wonder if that’s why they seem determined to open up in July to give us chance to get Illnesses/immunity before flu season.

Tumbleweed101 · 02/07/2021 19:02

We've had a lot of bad cough/cold type illnesses the last two or three weeks. Covid tests are all negative. Staff are getting it too... including me! - I worked all the way through too so shows how low our community exposure has been until now. We didnt have a single runny nose the whole of first lockdown.

bookh · 02/07/2021 19:06

I've found it strange how bad it's got here. My friend is a key worker and her two girls went to nursery all through 2020 without a bug. Same bubble, all the kids in it fine. All the other kids go back, bubble stays same size, they have been off more than in.

Is it the old problem that generally hygiene has slipped? Like back to people sending in without 48 hour rule because they have been off so much?

WeRTheOnesWeHaveBeenWaitingFor · 02/07/2021 19:09

This is definitely true IME! I work in schools and everyone (staff included) are picking up all sorts

linerforlife · 02/07/2021 19:14

My DD has just started at nursery (she's 1), and has caught something every single week she's been there. It's awful. But then... she's been shut away with just me and her Dad pretty much her entire life so I'm guessing she has zero immunity to any colds etc and this was bound to happen. But it's making my return to work really hard as she's just constantly poorly and doesn't sleep well at all, which means I'm knackered!

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