CDC Releases Guidelines Urging School Reopening

On matters to speed up schools reopening, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines on Friday.

The guideline is hopefully effective to resolve issues related to arguments that came from different parts of the country.

The CDC urged that the K-12 schools be effectively reopened offering a comprehensive science-based plan to pace it up. 

CDC Releases Guidelines Urging School Reopening

The guideline mainly focused on the fact that presently, it is safe to reopen the schools across the country since all of them will function under mitigation measures against the coronavirus pandemic.

The CDC’s guideline reflected the outputs of a survey conducted by The Times magazine of 175 pediatric disease experts.

This survey found that elementary students will receive proper in-person instruction safely, though they belong to communities with higher transmission rates. 

The guideline said that if schools follow effective testings on both students and staff, students from middle and high school levels can attend their school hours safely. This is possible even at lower and higher levels of community transmission rates. 

Most of the experts who were surveyed by The Times emphasized the importance of wearing masks by everyone and said that it is the simplest solution in the battle against COVID-19.

The director of the CDC, Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Friday that the agency’s operational strategy is based on scientific facts and the best available evidence.

Three have been debates going on with the terms of school reopening. Many parents are frustrated as some of the schools remain closed. Additionally, a significant number of schools have declined enrolment as well.

Experts said that children are left home for more than a year now which is extremely harmful to them in creating severe issues including learning loss, depression, anxiety, and isolation. Many pediatric health experts expressed their deep concern on the same in the survey. 

Dr. Lisa Abougi, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at the Colorado University expressed that the learning ability of children is closely related to their emotional health. She added that much of the cases of menstrual distress in children is caused because their schools are off.

The current administration also wants the schools to be active again. The new recommendations of the government also tried to tackle the resistance of letting children return to schools as well as the eager parents who wanted to have in-person learnings. 

Since the vaccination campaigns are smoothly going on in the country, the teachers will be vaccinated sooner. This will also actively reduce the transmission rates. Hence, teachers can let go of theory fears to return to schools as the risks of school reopening are far lesser than before. 

Dr Rabecca Same, an assistant professor in pediatric infectious disease at Washington University said that it is understandable as the teachers are panicked to return to their duties at schools.

However, there are currently various studies that have proven that it is safe for schools to be reopened since schools must follow appropriate precautions even if many staff and students are yet to be immunized.