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Dr K Aggarwal President CMAAO, HCFI, With input from Dr Monica Vasudev
India
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New Delhi, February 16, 2021 ;
- CDC has urged that K-12 schools be reopened
- There is a growing body of evidence that schools can openly safely if they put in effect layered mitigation measures.
- Even when students lived in communities with high transmission rates, elementary students could receive at least some in-person instruction safely
- Middle and high school students, could attend school safely at most lower levels of community transmission — or even at higher levels, if schools put into effect weekly testing of staff and students to identify asymptomatic infections.
- Universal masking is important, and it is a simple solution that made the need for other preconditions to opening less essential.
- There is a deep concern about other risks to students of staying home, including depression, hunger, anxiety, isolation and learning loss. Children’s learning and emotional and, in some cases, physical health is being severely impacted by being out of school.
- The Biden administration has made a high priority of returning children to classrooms
- The teachers should be vaccinated as quickly as possible, teachers do not need to be vaccinated before schools can reopen.
- There are now many well-conducted scientific studies showing that it is safe for schools to reopen with appropriate precautions, even without vaccination.
- They are much more likely to get infected from the outside community and from family members than from school contacts.
- CDC: Schools should be the last settings to close in a community and the first to reopen.
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