Schools that are not following proper COVID-19 safety measures increase the risk of the virus spreading to households in the community. When schools were switched to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents immediately wanted to know when schools would reopen for in-person learning. Remote learning was a struggle for a lot of families, and parents worried about their child’s social development when they were isolated from their classmates. As schools begin to reopen for in-person learning, parents may still have some concerns about how safe the environment is.
That is why research and studies are continuously being done to look at how schools can prevent the spread of the virus and what steps need to be taken to ensure it is a safe environment. According to EurekAlert and Medical Xpress, if schools do not have adequate safety measures in place, it can raise the risk of the virus being brought into the household.
The research was done by a team at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and they found that the risk will remain low If schools are following certain measures. To minimize the risk, teachers need to wear a mask, a face shield, and screen for symptoms and more.
•To complete this study, the team looked at almost 600,000 responses from a Facebook-based COVID-10 symptom survey.
•The survey had been ongoing in the UK from November 2020 to February 2021.
This was the period before vaccines were widely available across the country.
They found that families living with a child who was in full-time in-person schooling were 38% more likely to report symptoms of the virus when compared to families whose children were learning at home.
The survey also found that schools that had extensive safety measures reduced the risk.
To give an example of what this looks like, they found that there was a 9% less risk of COVID-19 per every measure that the school took. Every additional measure that the school took reduced the risk even more.
The strongest symptom-reducing measures were teachers wearing masks and completing daily screening. This information is important to ensure that all schools can reopen safely and that a parent’s anxieties can be put to rest.
If children attend schools that implement proper measures, the risk of them bringing the virus home to family, which may include those at high risk, is low and this is the ideal world that we all are striving to achieve.
Sources: Eureka Alert, Medical Xpress