MIDDLETOWN — The height of the COVID pandemic was stressful, but particularly for parents who often dealt with a lack of child care in the face of the disease and mandatory quarantines. This led many parents to go to extreme measures to get through the pandemic.
The study, which appeared in the March 6 issue of JAMA Network Open, followed up on earlier research conducted by the same team that surveyed about 1,700 adults about their own COVID-related behavior. It found four in 10 adults were dishonest about their own status.
Within this larger group, about 580 people who cared for a child under 18 during the pandemic answered additional questions about their behavior when it came to their kids. About 60 percent reported they lied about their child being vaccinated when it came to activities that required they be inoculated.
According to the study, more than 50 percent reported lying about their child’s COVID status because they “wanted freedom to do what they thought best for their family.” Almost 43 percent of parents were dishonest about their children having the virus because they didn’t want them to miss school, while another 35 percent were dishonest about their child having COVID because they couldn’t miss work to keep their child home.
Some parents said they also lied about their child’s age so they could get vaccinated sooner.
Andrea Gurmankin Levy, Ph.D., co-first author of the study and a professor of social sciences at Middlesex Community College, said she and her team were prompted to look into this topic after seeing the strain the pandemic placed on parents. Many of her team members are parents themselves, she added, and felt this firsthand.
“The pandemic created tremendous stress for all of us, especially for parents,” Levy said. “The public health measures that were in place really disproportionately impacted the most vulnerable populations. Families living paycheck to paycheck could not stay home if their child was in quarantine.
“We thought it was really important to find out if this was happening, how common it was, and why people might be doing it so we could potentially address it going forward,” she added.
Like many, parents were faced with the same worries many faced during the early days of the pandemic: whether they’d keep their job, get sick, and if their loved ones would be affected. But, Levy pointed out, they also had to deal with online learning or, if their child was back in school or day care, quarantines if the disease spread to their child’s class.
For many, the lack of child care forced them to choose between work and staying home with their child. However, the lack of adherence to mitigation guidelines and dishonesty about their COVID status may also have contributed to the spread of the disease, the research shows.
“It’s not surprising. When we look at psychological impacts of the pandemic, we see increases in mental illness, especially among parents,” she added. “We, of course, can completely understand why that has been so difficult, but this (dishonesty) does pose a real threat to public health. It undermines the effectiveness of public health measures put in place.”
Levy said the research team suspects the numbers may be even higher than indicated in the survey, as many parents may have been less than honest when answering questions. The goal of the study was not to shame parents, but create an understanding of how common this behavior was, what prompted it, and how this can be prevented going forward, she noted.
“Our results suggest we need to find ways to protect people in a public health crisis with policies that don’t depend on the honor system,” she said. More rapid COVID testing and the use of effective and comfortable masks, Levy said, could be part of the solution should there be another pandemic, as would offering employees paid leave so they can take time out when a child is sick.
“We need to address the fact that the public health measures in place disproportionately affected our most vulnerable population. … We really feel finding ways to support these groups so they don’t have to lie about their child being sick to stay employed is absolutely critical,” Levy said.
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