GREEN BAY, Wis. (NBC 26) — As we approach the second winter of the pandemic, other viral infections are now in the air with students and children back in school and child care. The Department of Children and Families provides regulated child care facilities with resources like the Wisconsin Childhood Communicable Diseases chart to help the staff create policies that "specify which symptoms would require removal of the child from the facility and when they can return."
"As highlighted in this chart, individuals with RSV should remain home until they are fever-free for 24 hours. While it is not required, DCF has been encouraging regulated child care providers to implement CDC recommended screening practices to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and other communicable diseases," Gina Paige, communications director for DCF said.
With many children in daycare too young to be vaccinated and consistently wear masks, how can parents tell the difference between viral upper respiratory infections like COVID-19, RSV and the common cold?
"They're basically the same," Dr. Donald Beno, a pediatric doctor with Aurora Healthcare said. "RSV is respiratory syncytial virus. It's a virus that affects all ages. It just happens to affect small people, especially those that are premature, but small children differently than it does bigger people."
According to the CDC, approximately 58,000 children under 5 years old are hospitalized due to RSV annually in the United States.
Both biologically and symptomatically, the infections look extremely similar.
"Unfortunately all upper respiratory viruses including COVID, RSV, influenza and the common cold all share similar symptoms," Dr. Beno said. "There's no one symptom that would tell you it is or isn't any one of those things."
Dr. Beno insists that wearing masks for children that are able to is the best defense against transmitting viral droplets and secretions like snot.
"The key is wear a mask, wash frequently, distance when we can, and avoid large crowds," Dr. Beno said.
Testing to differentiate COVID-19 infections from RSV, cold or flu is imperative to determining the infectious periods, thus likely when your child can return to school or daycare.
"What we really want to rule out at this moment in time is the infection with COVID-19," Dr. Beno said. "The reason is throughout the entire illness, whether or not they have a fever, throughout the entire illness they are transmitting viral particles to other people. The other viruses – RSV, influenza – they transmit most commonly during the period of time when a child has a fever."
Dr. Beno says this is why many health guidelines for schools and child care centers require kids to be fever-free for at least 24 hours before returning to the facility.
