As viruses spread, parents send sick kids to school, citing need to work, learning concerns and pandemic weariness

Schools across the nation have been hit hard by a slew of respiratory viruses, and some parents are sending their children to school sick or sending them back to school while still infected. They cite an inability to take more time off work, concern about their children missing in-class instruction and a weariness from dealing with the pandemic, Alex Janin reports for the Wall Street Journal.

In a typical year, Jackie Follansbee, a school nurse in Yakima County, Washington, would send two to three children a week home for returning to school sick, she told Janin. Now, it’s two to three “repeat offenders” a day, she says. In Kentucky, the Pike County school board has amended its attendance policy to increase the number of parent notes that can be used for excused absences from school from five to 10, Kristi Strouth reports for the Appalachian News-Express.

Schools across the country are sending notes to parents urging them to not send their children back to school until their child is fever-free for 24 hours without medication and symptoms are improving, Janin reports. And in some cases, nurses are calling families to remind them that symptoms of viral illnesses can last for a week or more.

One is respiratory syncytial virus, which is hardest on infants and seniors. As of Nov. 19, about 16% of PCR tests for RSV in the U.S. were positive, more than double the 7.5% at the same time last year, according to voluntary lab reports to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Then there's flu. As of the first week of November, the flu-hospitalization rate among U.S. children was the highest rate since 2009, the CDC says.

Increased infection and the need for school-aged children to stay home until they are well is also affecting workplaces, Abha Bhattarai reports for The Washington Post.

"A new round of viral infections — flu, RSV, Covid-19 and the common cold — is colliding with staffing shortages at schools and day-care centers to create unprecedented challenges for parents and teachers," the Post reports. "More than 100,000 Americans missed work last month because of child-care problems, an all-time high that’s surprisingly even greater than during the height of the pandemic, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics."