Doctors say they are taking a number of precautions to keep their own kids safe in the face of the highly infectious delta variant of the coronavirus.

Bay Area health experts are seeing parent anxiety creep up as they monitor the spread of the highly infectious delta variant of the coronavirus and weigh the safety of their children who are too young for vaccination.

The Chronicle reached out to infectious disease experts and pediatricians to check on how they are keeping their kids safe.

Sarah Doernberg, an infectious disease expert at UCSF.

“My general rule of thumb is if I can avoid putting my kids in situations that are higher risk, I do so,” Doernberg said.

She said she and her husband leave the children home and mask up for errands such as grocery shopping since “it’s a mix of people we don’t know.

“As far as risk to kids for this variant, I don’t think we know yet what the longer-term implications will be.

The federal government, which made similar recommendations Tuesday for much of the country, cited new data that vaccinated people can spread the virus as efficiently as those who have not received their jabs — meaning parents can pass it along to their kids.

Kate Babington, a pediatrician with Sutter Bay Medical Foundation Family Medicine and mother of two children under 12, is still following safety practices that became routine last year: masking in public, frequent handwashing and a degree of “judiciousness.”.

“The delta variant hasn’t changed my take that the coronavirus is out there and that I don’t want my kids to get any form of COVID.”.

Noting that the delta variant can spread more easily in contexts that were previously considered safe, she said, “Just being outdoors may not be as protective as we think when people are crowded together.”.

The experts unanimously hope to send their children back to school in person in the fall, despite some studies indicating that the young are more susceptible to the delta variant

“I definitely will if it’s recommended by public health experts,” Babington said