3:06
- wellness
- August 17, 2021
Doctor's tips on sending kids to school amid COVID
Dr. John Brownstein is a Boston-based epidemiologist and father of two.
3:06
While many parents were worried about disinfecting everything from groceries to countertops in the beginning of the pandemic, that can be much less of a concern for parents now, according to Brownstein.
\"What we now know is that transmission is really driven by respiratory air droplets and aerosols, and the other modes of transmission are just far and away less of a concern,\" he said. \"If we want to give our kids a normal year and we want to try to get back to normal, we should be aiming to focus on those high-transmission events.\"
\"That's why the focus has been on masking and social distancing and ventilation, because those are really the places in which transmission can take place,\" Brownstein added. \"Some of those other activities I really do think that we can do away with for this year.\"
Brownstein says he is looking at the return to school in the context of the need to keep kids, families and teachers safe, while keeping in perspective kids' relative low risk of severe complications from COVID-19, balanced with the need to give kids a fulfilling school year.
\"With that balance, we can't live in fear,\" he said. \"We have to make sure to be flexible and nuanced as we approach the school year, and recognize that it still might not be a normal year, but we should aim for the most normal experience.\"
Brownstein added that he and fellow parents still, \"have to be reasonable if things change, if we have to cancel certain activities, and certain types of events can't take place because of the level of transmission in the community.\"
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