Time of quarantine
The mother describes the quarantine as a ”terrible” experience. After
Melina´s positive test result, i.e. the day after her symptoms, the
recommended personal distance inside the family was adhered to. Melina
ate in her room with her mother as company at a distance and different
bathrooms were used. ”We cuddle a lot,” said the mother, “especially
in the evening, which did not happen for the 2.5 days until she went to
her daddy. This put a lot of strain on Melina and she kept saying that
she would like to hug or cuddle us. That was the worst part of the whole
thing for her, not the illness itself.” Despite this difficult
experience Melina drew quite positive picture in retrospect on April
13th (figure 3 ). The family did not leave the
house for 1.5 weeks and ordered food online. For fear that Melina could
be avoided, the infection was not communicated to the school, nor with
friends or neighbours.
Discussion Although Melina was quickly infected by her father, the infection did
not spread, despite very close, hugging and kissing physical contact
even at the time of the acute illness when a large amount of virus
exchange must be assumed2. Melina also did not infect
her 1-year-old half-brother, even though babies do get infected with
COVID-193. Data differ on whether children are less
susceptible to Sars-CoV-2 infection 4. Our case fits
with the findings of a 15% within-household secondary infection
rate5. Should it be shown that children are less
likely to infect others, this could be of relevance for the health
policy debate.
Subfebrile temperatures, headache and dizziness can be added to the
symptom canon6. The short course of the disease fits
with the described initial disease dynamics7, with
41.5% of children having fever at any time of the
disease8,9. There were no problems associated with the
use of ibuprofen.
The case suggests that fear of social stigmatisation can lead to not
disclosing the infection to acquaintances or to important institutions.
It can be assumed that the number of infected people is higher than
generally assumed.