Facial Coverings for Kids: What Parents Need to Know
The CDC recommends every person over the age of two years wear something to cover his/her nose and mouth in places where physical distancing is difficult, like trips to grocery stores and pharmacies.
The reason a facial covering is important is two-fold. First, it stops you from touching your face. The greatest evidence for community spread continues to indicate that infected droplets are spreading disease. The cloth helps to remind us to keep our dirty hands off this sensitive area of our body.
Secondly, it limits the droplets we spread. We know we can spread infected droplets before we get sick, if we show signs of illness at all. Facial coverings are thought to increasingly protect our fellow community members at high risk of getting significantly ill.
A few notes:
1. The US Surgeon General has shared simple ways to create these items for your family. Save the surgical masks and N95s for frontline healthcare.
2. There are few reasons your children need to travel with you right now, but if they do (to get to a doctors visit, for example) all kids over 8 yo should have a facial covering. No kids under the age of 2 should be masked. The 2-7 area is a gray zone bc a mask may cause them to touch their face MORE than with nothing at all. Use common sense.
3. Take off the facial covering as soon as you are able to safely resume social distancing. Coverings get damp the more they are worn which lessens their utility. In addition, assume the covering is covered in coronavirus as you take it off. Touch it sparingly as you remove it and place it in an safe area so you can immediately wash/dry the material (routine laundry cycle) as soon as you get home. And, of course, use hand sanitizer during this process.
4. With young children, it is helpful to practice wearing their facial covering before you need to go out. You can find some tips to make this process more tolerable for kids in this post from Healthy Children.
REMEMBER keep trips outside your home essential. Give others physical space. Wash your hands rigorously and often. Get good rest. Eat real food. Don’t stress about productivity. We will get through this together.
