Key guidelines for a secure return to the cole in the middle of the sixth wave

After a Christmas in which, next to the polvory, the debate on the "return to school" has always been on the table, fortunately this week the government and c

Key guidelines for a secure return to the cole in the middle of the sixth wave

After a Christmas in which, next to the polvory, the debate on the "return to school" has always been on the table, fortunately this week the government and communities have unanimously agreed to face face to classroom. And I say fortunately because, as in Sabina's song, we are left for the reasons.

Two years of pandemic later, we all accuse wear. Including our politicians. But in view of the fact that the enemy has come to stay, before making calls "hard decisions", it is more necessary for those decisions to be based on evidence and are sensitive to the complicated balance between physical, mental, social health and economical. And if with someone you have to be especially sensitive it is with children.

With respect to "the return to the school", today we know that the risk that children suffer a serious illness after infection by Coronavirus is low, while risks, not only for children but for society, to leave Children at home are really tall.

"Already, but children can get adults and contribute to the expansion of the virus". Of course, they can do it. But there are two important details that the Spanish Association of Pediatrics tells us.

First, that most of the cases of Covid-19 children seem to be secondary to cases of adult infection. And, secondly, the data suggest that, although children convey the coronavirus they make it to a lesser extent than adults.

Therefore, it is true that children can get adults, but not to a greater extent that adults can spread other adults at a bar, in a cinema or in a subway car. And not only we do not close these spaces, but we encourage people to occupy them because "the sector must be supported." And who supports them who supports them?

Once the evidence tells us that children are not "supercontagiators", which have never been the cause of all differentially legs above, what are the effects of depriving them from face-to-face education?

Beyond the obvious delay in learning due to on-line teaching (this is especially accused in the little ones), we can not forget the effect that has not to attend the school for child mental health nor the problems generated in families for the impossibility of reconciling the care of minors at home with the work of parents.

For the return to the school to be safe, it is important to reinforce the "always" measures and include new measures that are at our disposal, such as vaccination in children under twelve years or the Pool Testing in the classroom, which in Spain are still as unicorns .

But the pedagogy and the new tools will not arrive alone, we need the ones above to remoke to offer improvements, always in collaboration with the educational centers and the families.

It is a great news that about 90% of adolescents between 12 and 19 years old have already received the full guideline. For its part, more than 30% of children between 5 and 11% have received the first dose from mid-December, when vaccination for this fringe began. However, there is more and more media noise generated by some sectors contrary to childhood vaccination and we need sanitary authorities to dedicate resources to do pedagogy.

We need to continue insisting that children's vaccines are effective and safe. Last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States published three new studies on COVID-19 and vaccines. In the first, very few adverse effects were found by concluding that the vaccines were safe. The results of the second study indicate that non-vaccinates have 12 times more risk of becoming infected than vaccinated. And in the third, focused on children with hospitalized coronavirus, it was observed that all children, except one, were unstifted.

Health authorities should redouble their efforts so that these data, and not the Bulls, are those who monitor holders and communicate effectively among the population. We need to continue denial that the goal of vaccinating children will only protect adults. As we mentioned in these pages, in addition to protecting them and their families from possible serious forms of the disease, when vaccinating children, we contributed to curbing the contagions.

This is the first step so that they recover a more normal life, something very desirable for mental health. Also when vaccinating children and limiting the circulation of the virus, we contributed to prevent the enemy from mute and new variants resistant to vaccines appear. Ending the pandemic as soon as possible it is something that benefits us all, also to children.

Testing children in the classroom is fundamental, even more if it is expected to suppress quarantines by narrow contacts. When when a Pool Testing or Test by German-style grouping?

It consists of taking a sample of all the students of the same class to join and perform a single test. In the event that the result is positive, individual tests will be carried out to each student of the class and thus find out who or who are positive.

In the event that the result is negative, with a single test we have saved resources to the system. From Harvard's public health school, they go one step further and are especially critical with the duration of school quarantines. These experts propose that two rapid evidence of negative antigens in consecutive days without the presence of symptoms are sufficient to return to school safely.

The classic measures that are presupposed (masks, hands, distance) is important that in the schools, special importance is given to the ventilation. Resources must be allocated to improve the facilities of old buildings with shortcomings in this regard.

It is true that many centers need expensive and impossible works and reforms to undertake in the short term, but in any case we can always invest in more affordable tools. It is interesting to have CO2 meters to control air quality, it can also be installed HEPA filters correctly dimensioned to classroom needs, and of course, we should not forget about something so basic and that it is also free as ventilating between class and class And have the window ajar during the same, although now in January he will scratch.

Date Of Update: 09 January 2022, 08:53