Soldiering through sickness not an option, so parents forced to juggle schedules

N.S. parents have to adjust schedules Precautions means students showing symptoms have to miss school – and parents have to miss work. Nick Moore reports.

HALIFAX — More and more parents are adjusting schedules because their children have symptoms that could be COVID-19.

Children are missing school and parents are missing work because powering through a runny nose or a minor cough used to be the norm, but people just can't do that anymore.

"What if it is COVID?" said parent Duntan Salvador.

Salvador has two young children, one of whom recently had a runny nose.

The next day, her other child had a sore throat.

"We were checking 'do you have a fever? No you don't have a fever. She kept saying my throat hurts,'" Salvador said. "I was panicking; I was so anxious."

Salvador's children are doing fine now, but she made the decision to keep them out of school until she was completely sure.

"I had to stay home," Salvador said. "I couldn't go to work until Friday I think."

Sara Austin is with Children First Canada and based in Calgary.

"Clearly, there's been huge disruptions to children and their families, both in terms of child education as well as parental employment," Austin said.

At least 10 per cent of Canadian families have had a child sent home from school due to having a least one symptom of COVID-19, according to a new study from children first Canada.

"Kids are being sent home with mild symptoms and having to go for samples," Austin says. "That means that kids and families are spending hours in line to get tested and often waiting days to get results."

Having no paid sick leave can make the situation even more difficult.

"And that really means that parents have to choose between 'do I send my kid to school sick, so that I can keep our family afloat financially,' or 'do we bite the bullet and take it on the chin and lose our house or not afford to eat,'" said NSTU president Paul Wozney.

Kevin Kelloway is an occupational health psychologist at Saint Mary's University.

"Along comes a pandemic and all of sudden we do a total reversal and say 'look if you're sick stay home if you have a symptom stay home, we don't want to see you here," Kelloway said.

Kelloway says companies are evolving quickly, but testing hasn't caught up.

"The sooner we get rapid testing for COVID widely available, the better for all of us," he said.

According to the Children First Canada report,

almost a half a million Canadian parents have had to quit or switch a job due to changes at school or daycare, during the pandemic.