Like millions of Americans, Judy Ross has had to share that message as so many of us figure out what to do about the upcoming holidays in this age of COVID-19.
“It’s scary, and I’m not a fear-mongering type of person,” said Candice Jones, MD, a pediatrician based in Orlando, FL, of the Georgia news -- particularly the hallway photo that left her “speechless.”
She said, “My mouth fell open. I questioned whether it was a real photo.”
It was. But, she said, it didn’t have to happen. Schools should require students to wear masks. And Jones and others have advocated that students remain in one classroom all day, rather than changing en masse several times a day, to lower the risk of exposure.
School officials said the crowded hallways were OK because the students were in the hallway for only a few minutes. CDC guidelines say you need to be exposed for 15 minutes or more to contract the virus. The district does not require masks.
“This isn’t the time to find loopholes in the guidelines,” said Taylor Heald-Sargent, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine outside Chicago.
“The CDC guidelines are just that, they’re guidelines, and it’s really the nuances that make the difference.”
With more schools opening in the next weeks, administrators, teachers, parents, and students will be paying attention to what happens in Georgia, experts say.
“Those are things that people are going to have to look at across the country,” said Marybeth Sexton, MD, assistant professor, Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. “And the experiences here (in Georgia) where we go back fairly early may help inform that.”
Some experts say children under 10 are probably less at risk than older children and teenagers -- but it is still possible and does occur. In school, young ones might not be able to understand what’s going on or the need for social distancing. And getting a kindergartner to wear a mask all day brings its own challenges.
A new study from JAMA Pediatrics reports that kids under 5 with mild to moderate symptoms “have much higher levels of genetic material for the virus in the nose than older children and adults,” according to statement from the Northwestern University about the study. “It adds to mounting evidence children of all ages could play an important role in transmission.”
“It supports the idea that they definitely can get infected and can replicate virus in their noses even when they’re not that sick,” said Heald-Sargent, a co-author of the JAMA study. “It seems possible that they are able to spread coronavirus. Kids are frequent drivers of respiratory infections.
“We need to be careful and safe, and the assumption that kids are immune or resistant to infection might be a flawed assumption. It’s better to err on the side of safety.”
Adolescents often behave impulsively or against their own interests, Sexton said. “Kids also do tend to have a strong sense of wanting to protect their families, their friends, and of wanting to do the right thing. … How do we explain it to them? How do we model it for them? And there probably does have to be some insistence” on wearing masks.
By remembering the basics and modeling good behavior, adults can help kids at school remember to wash their hands, use sanitizer, practice social distancing, and wear face coverings.
“We can’t just let them walk into school like it’s October 2019,” Jones said. “Nothing is going to be 100% risk free. But the goal here is to lower the risk as much as we can and prevent the spread.”
For starters, the usual back-to-school supplies will include new additions for fall 2020. Experts are advising face masks, hand sanitizer, and disinfecting wipes go into backpacks along with pencils and paper.
And students will be enlarging their vocabularies because of the pandemic, too. If they don’t know “pods,” “hybrid” and “symptoms,” they will soon.
The CDC and other experts advise that before school starts for the year and before school every day:
The CDC and other experts advise that before school starts for the year and before school every day:
At the end of each day, consider a household protocol for when the kids come home:
Where schools aren’t open yet, Sexton urges everyone to do what they can to lower community transmission rates as much as possible: wear masks, stay home except when necessary, socially distance, etc.
“One of the best ways to get kids back to school is doing things that are going to protect all of us, no matter what,” Sexton said. “If you make the communities safer, the schools are going to be safer.”
SOURCE:
WebMD Health News Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD on August 06, 2020, www.webmd.com, https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200806/can-you-protect-kids-from-covid-19-at-school.
Taylor Heald-Sargent, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics, Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
Candice Jones, MD, pediatrician, Orlando, FL.
Marybeth Sexton, MD, assistant professor, Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.
CDC.
CNN.
Northwestern University.
NBC’s “Today” show.
Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics: “Age-Related Differences in Nasopharyngeal Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Levels in Patients With Mild to Moderate Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Images of Student Crowds Raise Questions in Georgia Schools.”
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