Aug 20, 2020, 7:30 PM
(From The Washington Post) The World Health Organization has warned that young people are becoming the primary drivers of the spread of the novel coronavirus in many countries, because their symptoms are often milder and many are unaware they are infected. WHO officials also urged school systems to proceed cautiously and pleaded with young people not to indulge in increasingly risky behavior, such as attending a large social gathering or a crowded bar, as the pandemic persists. The warnings come amid intense debate about whether to bring students back to classrooms.
(From NPR) A new study conducted by researchers at Yale suggests that, of all the factors school administrators can control, the frequency of coronavirus testing is most important. Some institutions that want students to return to campus are backing the goal with a maximal approach to safety and testing. For instance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champain is now requiring any faculty, staffers and students participating in on-campus activities to get tested twice a week.
Saliva testing, which is less invasive and much quicker than using a nasal swab, will be provided for free to all 50,000 students as well as some 11,000 faculty and staff. With the FDA’s emergency use authorization, the testing method is immediately available to other diagnostic laboratories that want to start using the new test, which can be scaled up quickly for use across the nation in the coming weeks, the researchers said.
(From The New York Times) The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that every school have a nurse on site. But even before the pandemic, less than 40% of U.S. schools employed a full-time nurse, and a quarter of schools did not have one at all. Now those overburdened health care specialists are finding themselves charged with evaluating children for coronavirus symptoms and determining whether they should report to an isolation room away from other students and staff members, as well as communicating with parents already anxious about dropping their children off at school. Under these high-stakes expectations, nurses fear they may contract the virus, and worry whether specially designated isolation rooms and personal protective equipment will be enough to contain outbreaks.
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