Indiana parents and health experts are worried how asthmatic children will stay safe during the in-person teaching.
It’s not only the children, but experts warn that this seems to be very difficult situation even for families that have at least one person suffering from asthma in the household.
While the numbers are rising every day with the latest wave, concerns are rising.
“The majority of our families are worried,” said Dr. Kirsten Kloepfer, IU Health Allergy and Asthma Specialist. “They’re worried about [how] children are going back and they’re not requiring masks and their child will get the delta variant.”
Parents and families known to have health conditions are worried about their safety and the safety of their children since the current situation is dangerous even for vaccinated people.
“It’s just a lot,” Sherrell Harvison said. “It’s very scary.”
She added that she is an asthma patient. Although her children are not confirmed to suffer from the same condition, they are currently being monitored in an asthma study.
“Concerned if they get it, I pray every day that they don’t,” she said. “Because they’re around a lot of children every day. And the numbers are steady going up as far as with the children so yeah it’s pretty scary. It’s a pretty scary situation.”
“We are seeing an increase in asthma exacerbations right now,” Kloepfer said.
The alarming thing is that more and more children are currently coming in with respiratory illnesses. According to Kloepfer, this is something that should not be present at this time of the year. Cold viruses, Kloepfer says, are triggers for people with asthma.
“I think what happened is we masked through the fall and winter and some of the spring, and then everybody took their masks off and started getting together in groups and all the viruses spread,” Kloepfer explained.
“We really highly recommend masking because we saw a decrease in viruses all last year so clearly masking helps. Especially right now with the delta variant, we don’t know if it’s going to cause our asthmatics to be worse.”
It’s not clear how children and families with asthma or similar condition will stay safe during the surging numbers. Wearing masks and getting vaccinated are among the few things that give extra protection for now.
