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.