New school guidelines around COVID-19: What parents need to know

We all want our children to be able to go back to school. What we don’t want is for them — or their teachers — to get sick from COVID-19. There is no easy, let alone perfect, solution, which is why, a year into the pandemic, there is no clear way forward. Recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidelines to serve as a roadmap for navigating this difficult part of our pandemic journey. According to these new guidelines, all schools offering in-person learning should prioritize universal, correct use of masks and physical distancing. The CDC also notes three more strategies are essential for safe in-person instruction: hand washing, cleaning school facilities, and contact tracing. Layering together these five strategies can help lessen the spread of COVID-19 in schools. Below are key highlights from the CDC guidelines. Children need to be in school I think that all of us agree that remote school pales in comparison to in-person instruction for the vast majority of our children and teens. It’s not just about education, which is clearly better when one has the ability to interact in person with other students, but also about equity. So many families have struggled with access to the technology, learning space, and support that are necessary to make remote learning even vaguely successful; for so many children and communities, the pandemic has caused learning loss that will have long-reaching consequences. There are also consequences in ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Adolescent health Children's Health Coronavirus and COVID-19 Parenting Source Type: blogs