With cases of the Delta variant of COVID-19 continuing to rise across the country, particularly among children, many parents and teachers are focusing on the best strategies to keep their children safe this school year.
“Masking everybody, distancing childcare at least three feet indoors, and making sure that everyone that can be vaccinated is vaccinated,” advises Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, professor of pediatric infectious diseases at Stanford University School of Medicine. She joined Yahoo Finance Live for a candid discussion on the state of the pandemic.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly 4.8 million children have test positive for COVID-19 as of August 26. Of those cases, about 204,000 were added in the past week. It marked the second week with child cases at the level of the winter surge of 2020-21.
“I think the academy has been very clear for many months now that children should go back to school. There is a path for them to go back to school — it’s quite straightforward. It may be difficult to operationalize in some areas, but we’ve had plenty of time now to get that going,” said Maldonado said.
“We know from studies around the country, that when masking and distancing are applied, that you are seeing a minimum of infections in the school. And the vast majority of those infections are actually coming from the community and not from school outbreaks,” she added.
“We know that if there will be outbreaks in school, they’ll happen because if children aren’t masked, teachers aren’t masked, and vaccines aren’t being used,” she said.
Maldonado is dismayed at officials and school boards who are fighting against CDC-recommended COVID-19 mitigation strategies.
“This is not rocket science. Children are smart, they know how to adapt and they are ready to adapt. So why we’re doing this, preventing people from protecting children, is absolutely reprehensible,” she said.
When it comes to the mental toll that the pandemic has had on children across the U.S., Maldonado says that the effects may not be known for years to come. However, she believes that children do have the mental and emotional capacity to overcome these issues with the proper support system.
“Children are very resilient … parents and schools need to be aware of what we can do to mitigate some of the impacts of social isolation for those children who don’t have the bandwidth, they don’t have resources at home, they are there alone, and parents have to work and leave them alone. For example, those children are going to be even hit harder. So there will be a lot to do in the coming years to make sure that our children are their issues are addressed,” she said.
Maldonado stressed that she and other medical experts aren’t saying stay home, don’t interact with others. “We’re saying the opposite: You can go out and enjoy social activities, school, and other venues, but make sure you’re masked and vaccinated at this point cause that Delta is a pretty infectious virus, much more infectious than the previous version.”
Reggie Wade is a writer for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @ReggieWade.
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