Connie Britton is opening up about a nightmare scenario for many parents: getting COVID and having to isolate from your kids.
On Monday, the actor shared her recent experience with COVID on Instagram. “I just got over COVID. Usually I’m pretty private but I wanted to share a little bit of my experience with y’all, particularly if you’re a parent trying to manage keeping your little ones negative in the same house, or vice versa,” she wrote. “Because whooo that was not easy.”
When Britton tested positive, she placed a panicked call to her doctor, worried about how she would quarantine away from her 10-year-old son Yoby. Pandemic parenting is more challenging than ever, especially for single parents like Britton. The number of kids hospitalized with COVID reached a new peak in the U.S. as omicron infections have surged, with hospitalizations rates being driven especially by young children who don’t yet have access to a vaccine.
Britton shared one major factor in trying to keep her son from getting the virus: “[My doctor] broke it down for me. Masks. If you’re both masked and avoid face to face contact, that can keep the virus from spreading,” she wrote. “Of course avoiding face to face contact with your 10 year old is no easy feat (I can’t imagine if I had a real little!).” To pull it off and keep her son COVID-free, Britton shared that she isolated herself in her room, only venturing to the kitchen—while masked—to prep meals for her family.
She also spoke about the emotional toll it takes when COVID touches your family. “Honestly the worst was not being able to hug or even make close eye contact with my son who has spent 1/5 of his life now upended from this pandemic. Kids, and all of us, have been living in fear of this thing for 2 years. And now mom has it!! And he might get it! So frightening,” Britton wrote.
The Nashville star credited being vaccinated and boosted with keeping her case of COVID “so mild” and with ultimately keeping her son safe. “If it wasn’t COVID I wouldn’t have missed a day of work,” she wrote. “I was so grateful, having feared the damage, particularly to the lungs, that a bad case of COVID can do. This was the thing we’ve been running from in fear for 2 years. But I do believe my vaccines made it more mild. And my son’s vaccines protected him and made it so he could go to school after an initial isolation as long as he was masked and remained negative, which was so much better for him than knocking around a house trying to avoid his mom like the literal plague!”
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Research shows vaccines are highly effective at preventing transmission of the coronavirus. Getting the booster shot may make you 13 times less likely to get infected, as SELF previously reported. The booster is especially important for warding off the highly contagious omicron variant, according to early data from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, which show a meaningful uptick in antibodies following booster shots. Get vaxxed, get boosted, and if someone in your household does test positive for COVID-19, wear masks to stay safe.
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