CDC Believes Precautions Taken in Campuses and Community Can Make Schools Safe

It's been a year since the novel coronavirus disease or COVID-19 has started plaguing the world, pulling children out of schools and everyone else confined into their homes to avoid the sickness, but now that the vaccine is here and the end is hopefully near, how will education return to normal?

Among the major issues the United States and the rest of the world had ever since the pandemic began was when and how schools would re-open and how to keep the children safe.

Until now, the question remains.

CDC Officials Say Opening Schools is Possible

However, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) offered some of their insight, saying that children can return to schools and classrooms as soon as possible based on "preponderance of available evidence" indicating that it is safe to do so as long as schools and the community takes safety precautions.

According to the New York Times, CDC officials suggested the continued use of face masks and maintaining social distancing.

But more than that, the health officials also said that local officials should also be willing to impose stricter rules and limits to other settings, such as indoor dining and bars as well as poorly ventilated gyms and other closed spaces.

Doing so should help keep the infection rates lower in the community, keeping our children safer.

Limiting School Activities is a Must

Moreover, school administrators should also limit school activities that could increase the risks of teachers and students.

"It's not going to be safe to have a pizza party with a group of students," Margaret Honein said, a member of CDC's COVID-19 emergency response team as well as the first author of the article published in the scientific journal JAMA. "But outdoor cross-country, where distance can be maintained, might be fine to continue."

Although the COVID-19 virus continues to rapidly spread across nations and mutating to create variants that are more contagious, the CDC officials remain adamant that there is not enough evidence that points to schools sparking the same outbreaks like those in nursing homes and factories, or that they can contribute to the increase of the transmission rates in communities as a whole.

Dr. Honein said in an interview that they did not have enough data to work on last August and September of 2020, which should be the opening months of classes.

Without enough data, they cannot guarantee whether COVID-19 has the same impact on schools.

Minimizing Transmission Through Wearing Masks

Nevertheless, the CDC official did say that they have enough data to show we can minimize transmission in schools by following strict health protocols.

Dr. Honein and other health officials share the same sentiment as other public health experts and some leading educators that schools should be among the last to close if a lockdown is necessary, and should be among the first ones to open.

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 as a pandemic March of 2020, schools began shutting down one by one and turned to online classes to continue children's education amid the ongoing health crisis.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by: Nhx Tingson