“People get viruses. Our leaders must understand, though, that viruses don’t just go away, not always. I am getting my second shingles shot this Thursday because chicken pox never goes away – it just waits to become some peoples attack of shingles, and then some peoples permanent post-herpetic neuralgia – otherwise known as lifelong nerve pain. A previous post talked more about viral infections of the past. The current thinking supports the idea that most people will clear COVID-19 from their bodies. But nobody yet understands what is happening with the long haulers, those people who got sick early in the epidemic and who are still sick.” See: https://www.eduhonesty.com/better-to-be-too-scared-of-those-classrooms-than-not-scared-enough/, (amber)
In educational terms – half measures for safety are unacceptable. The ventilation in classrooms must reach osha standards. https://www.businessinsider.com/poor-indoor-air-quality-could-make-schools-coronavirus-hotspots-2020-9 lays out a few technical details: “…although there’s no simple, easy, or cheap way to measure coronavirus particles in the air, carbon dioxide can be a “canary in the coal mine,” according to Roger Silveira, an air-quality specialist and the facilities director at San Jose’s East Side Union High School District. Carbon-dioxide monitors sell for about $100.
In a building with good ventilation, CO2 levels should generally stay under 1,100 parts per million, Silveira said.”
If school rooms can’t hit these air quality targets, those rooms should remain closed. The hand sanitizer, deep cleaning, temperature checks and masks must be there. Or the rooms don’t open. A school should not open for live instruction until all safety protocols are in place and operating smoothly.
Because there are pediatric long haulers. There are adult long haulers. There are deceased teachers and school staff members – and there will be more. We can’t stop this virus yet, but we must hold illness down to the lowest level possible as we open up schools.
The Federal government has led us to a place where we have 4% of the world’s population and 21% of the world’s COVID-19 cases, an inauspicious beginning for this year’s school openings. Not long ago, we had 25% of the world’s deaths so our situation is improving — or the world’s situation is deteriorating. But in a couple of days, we will pass the 200,000 dead mark.
If safety takes additional funding, government leaders need to pony up NOW. Years and years of underfunding schools while the infrastructure of some buildings slowly decayed has caught up with us. Like our old bridges, not all our old schools can carry the weight of today’s sudden increase in demands. That does not excuse government leaders from responsibility for making those schools safe. We close unsafe bridges — most of the time — and unsafe schools must be closed as well. If the air doesn’t circulate, and the windows don’t open, that should end all discussion until repairs are completed.
A note for parents: And recent reports in the New York Post and other sources saying 86% of teachers bought their own PPE for in-person classes — reader, read between those lines. That’s how much faith the people on the front lines have in their leaders’ concern for their well-being. I’d think about that carefully before I volunteered to send my child for in-person classes. I’d visit any school before I started regularly sending my child through those big, wide front doors.
Me being me, I might take a carbon dioxide monitor with me. Ideally, I’d want to go in when students were present. If I were a teacher, I’d definitely check room gasses.
P.S. I might go on my neighborhood app to see if I could borrow the monitor. Note that this monitor is not a carbon monoxide detector. You are looking for carbon dioxide instead.
P.S.S. Want a technical read? Here’s an article from the Journal of Pediatrics: https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(20)31023-4/fulltext
It’s conclusion? “This study reveals that children may be a potential source of contagion in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in spite of milder disease or lack of symptoms, and immune dysregulation is implicated in severe post-infectious MIS-C.” The first part of that conclusion is crystal clear — kids, even kids who don’t seem sick, appear able to spread the infection. The second part says that a severe disease process that affects some children after they get the coronavirus is believed to result from a misguided immune response that causes the children’s immune systems to attack their own tissues.
Here’s a quick read at least partly taken from the above source: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kids-bigger-silent-spreaders-covid-19_l_5f3eb8e4c5b6305f3254cb1e