Whooping Cough - and Keeping Sick Kids Indoors (calculator, restaurants)

[atlantagreg30127]

First of all, this article highlights the growing problem of Whooping Cough infections and how in Cobb (and the metro) it's spreading more than some think: Whooping cough vaccine not as powerful as thought | ajc.com (http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories//2009/03/22/whooping_cough_vaccine.html - broken link)

This is also an excellent time for parents to be aware of two things:

1) When you take your sick child out in public, they typically cough into the open air, around all people near them. Since viruses can typically travel up to 25 feet when "sprayed" through a cough, one sick child can potentially spread their illness to literally dozens of people on one single outing.

While sometimes it's simply necessary to take a sick child with you to pick up medicine at the drug store, or to go to the doctor's office, you should seriously reconsider trips to the grocery store, and especially "fluff" trips such as to a restaurant or mall, with a sick child. This isn't a joke - you could be exposing people who are prone to serious complications (elderly, other kids, people with compromised immune systems/cancer patients, etc) to viruses that can seriously hurt or even kill them. Take your sick kids out ONLY when it's a trip that is absolutely necessary - doctors yes. Pizza Hut or Macys - NO.

2) Part of # 1 is also to teach your children to cover their mouths when they cough as soon as they comprehend what you're saying, and discipline them verbally when they don't. They should cough on the back of their hand, NOT into their hand where they can then tough things and spread viruses. It's common courtesy to those around them who are NOT sick, and for the record from what I've seen lately, it wouldn't hurt a lot of mom and dads to relearn the art of covering their mouths, either.


In the last two weeks, I would need an industrial calculator to count the number of people I've seen who have taken extremely sick kids into local restaurants and retail stores. I'm talking about kids who are sometimes violently coughing and obviously have serious respiratory illnesses. Most of the time, these kids are coughing without covering their mouths, in very crowded spaces, and the parent(s) with them say nothing to them about it. VERY sad.

So please folks, from the article it's obvious that stuff.... serious stuff.... is going around now in large amounts. Please respect those around you and try to keep the spread of germs to an absolute minimum when deciding on taking your sick kids (or you) out in public.