Opinion | Coronavirus in Hong Kong: Must children be separated from their parents during quarantine to keep us safe?

For parents, the fear of being separated from their children might outweigh their fear of the virus

In some countries, healthy parents are allowed to be isolated with their sick children. This could be made possible in Hong Kong too

Reading Time:4 minutes

Published: 9:00am, 16 Apr 2020Updated: 9:01am, 16 Apr 2020

As the Covid-19 pandemic rages, there has been considerable anxiety in the community over children being separated from their parents during testing and treatment for coronavirus, isolation and quarantine.

The Centre for Health Protection’s current policy is to isolate and hospitalise all positive cases, regardless of age, and to send all close contacts of positive cases to government quarantine centres. For many parents, the fear of being separated from their children, or of their children facing the trauma of testing, hospitalisation or quarantine on their own, far outweighs their fear of the virus itself.

A parent’s instinct that their child – especially one below the age of understanding – would be adversely affected emotionally and mentally by such separation is supported by an abundance of literature by child psychologists warning that separation during a traumatic event like hospitalisation can have long-term negative effects.

Stories of eight-week-olds being abruptly taken away by ambulance, of children soiling themselves and throwing up in terror while being tested, of breastfeeding mothers torn from their infants and of two-year-olds traumatised by weeks without the parents have led to panicked discussions about what would happen if one or more members of a family were to test positive.

In countries such as the United States and Britain, it is possible for a healthy parent to join a sick child in isolation, but in accordance with strict hygiene protocol. In the US, for example, a Covid-19-positive mother can elect to stay with her newborn and breastfeed the baby directly. In such places, whether to stay with a child is a matter for the parent, who has been educated about the risks, to assess and decide.

Some parents, especially those with underlying medical conditions, may choose to prioritise their own health in the long-term best interests of their child. But many others may feel that the risk of psychological damage to their child due to traumatic separation or the fear of their child dying alone outweighs the actual risk posed by the virus.

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