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Durham doctor urges parents to take precautions, get vaccinated after entire family tests positive for COVID-19

Cathi Sander, a medical doctor, who treats COVID-19 patients, said she believes that the virus made its way into her home through her unvaccinated 9-year-old daughter, who has been in year-round school for a few weeks.
Posted 2021-08-24T20:06:33+00:00 - Updated 2021-08-25T21:53:01+00:00
Durham family that all tested positive for COVID-19 believe unvaccinated daughter contracted virus at school

Cathi Sander, a medical doctor who treats COVID-19 patients, said she believes that the virus made its way into her home through her unvaccinated 9-year-old daughter, who has been in year-round school for a few weeks.

The rest of the family is fully vaccinated. In fact, Sander, a participant in Pfizer clinical trials, has already had her third shot, the booster.

She says she doesn't want to cause fear, and doesn't regret sending her daughter back to school. She hopes her story is a reminder about the importance of getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Her 9-year-old daughter was the first one in the family to show symptoms.

"Despite all of us being vaccinated, when my younger child came down sick with a fever, turns out she had COVID.

"We’ve spent the last eight days with everyone in the household sick," Sander said. "Thankfully, because of vaccines, we feel really crummy but [it's] never been dangerous."

Sander says everyone in her family is doing relatively well. Her youngest daughter, she says, had a fever for a few days but has now bounced back.

Sander stresses that transmission in school is rare.

Last year, she started a volunteer group of mostly medical professionals that goes into Durham schools and helps with COVID-19 protocols. In the spring, close to 150 volunteers put in about 1,000 hours in about a dozen schools, she said.

"The schools need extra help. And this is really just one small piece," she said. "We’ve said for y ears that we need nurses in schools. We’ve just never done it."

Her team helped with screening last year, and this year they serve as an extra adult in the classroom to supervise students who show symptoms before they are sent home.

"The overwhelming amount of data is that if we are in a universally masked situation, transmission is exceedingly rare," she said.

Durham Public Schools spokesperson Chip Sudderth agrees with Sander. He says there has only been one cluster of coronavirus cases in year-round school.

"By and large though, the cases that we’ve had, have been cases that are away from school," he said. "And we’ve taken precautions that we need to have close contacts quarantine, to keep from any potential spread."

Sander urges parents not to be nervous, but rather to take all the protections they know help.

"Mask up, get everyone vaccinated," she said. "Be very careful about who you’re spending time with and make it matter, if it’s not work and not school."

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