When the pandemic hit, Peter’s mother, a former science teacher, made masks for health care workers. “My mom and my dad, they’ve been stressing about how careful I need to be with this,” Peter said. So he washes his hands between every other class, and before and after eating. “We’re taking this very seriously.”
Kennedy Heim, 14, Elwood Junior-Senior High School in Indiana
On her second day of quarantine on Thursday, Kennedy said that she was feeling fatigued but that her case did not seem as bad as others she has heard about.
“I was a little scared” after getting the results on Wednesday, she said.
At least three or four other students she knows of have also tested positive at the school, she said, but she is not sure how she might have been infected — or if she could have infected anyone else.
“It came out of nowhere, and I don’t know who else I was around,” she said. She went to volleyball practice the week before starting school, but no one came within six feet of her, she said.
She also diligently wore her mask during her two days at school, she said, except while at lunch when eating. Whenever she tucked her mask beneath her nose, she would make sure others were not nearby.
Kennedy’s mother, Liz Wright, also started school last week — she is a second-grade teacher. Her school remains open even while the high school is closed for the week, with the students distance learning.
So now she and her daughter have quarantined from each other.
“I’m not going to lie, I have been skeptical about kids getting it,” Ms. Wright said. “But to be a part of this pandemic, it is a real thing. It’s not fun to have to FaceTime your daughter in the other room.”
Adam Wren reported from Indianapolis, and Dan Levin from New York. Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio contributed reporting from New York, Lucy Tompkins from Bozeman, Mont., and Chris Wohlwend from Knoxville, Tenn.