National Health Center Week: Anti-COVID Measures Benefit The Whole Community As Kids Go Back To School During The Pandemic

National Health Center Week — which runs from August 9 to 15 — raises awareness and celebrates the accomplishments of Community Health Centers; clinics that provide a broad range of essential health services to whole communities, often with an important focus on their most vulnerable members.

Everyone from homeless people to undocumented immigrants and low-income children can receive comprehensive health care from Community Health Centers, where they may otherwise have missed out on treatment they truly needed. 

Calling attention to the important work community clinics are doing has perhaps become more urgent than ever — since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Community Health Centers have fallen victim to budget cuts at a time when communities count on them. 

National Health Center Week has a different focus each day, and on August 15, it's Children's Health Day.

The organizer's of the event point out that routines are essential to helping children thrive physically and mentally. Regular health checkups are part of that routine, but so are everyday activities like sports, brushing teeth, and eating family dinners. School, too, was a very normal and important part of most children's routines — until, that is, COVID-19 thrust them into a new life of virtual learning, and kids everywhere had to quickly adjust to greatly reduced physical contact. 

COVID-19 is still a threat, so why are schools reopening?

According to the CDC, schools play a "unique and critical role" that "makes them a priority for opening and remaining open", despite the fact that the coronavirus remains a threat.

If you are the parent of a child who attended school until the pandemic put a sudden stop to their routine, you are probably already personally familiar with parts of the CDC's reasoning:

• COVID-19 can affect children, and sometimes seriously. However, 95 percent of reported cases have been among adults, and even if a child does catch COVID-19, their risk of a severe case is relatively small when compared to an adult. That is, children and teenagers below 18 years old made up below 0.1 percent of total COVID-related deaths in the United States.
• Unplanned and sudden distance-learning programs do not provide optimal academic benefits. Many children have found it hard to get used to virtual learning. Not all families have (reliable) internet connections, while some parents have had to keep working outside the home and others were busy with their own virtual work. That, in short, means less learning gets done, and already-mastered knowledge can atrophy. 
• Distance learning programs pose a risk of further marginalizing already vulnerable groups of children, such as those who are low-income, speak English as a second language, or have special educational needs. 
• Schools aren't just for learning, but also for socializing and social development. Virtual learning makes this hard, and the social isolation many children have been subject to since the dawn of the pandemic poses a mental health threat. 

Can schools reopen safely? The anti-COVID measures that can keep children safe when they return to the school benches

Strictly in terms of the transmission of COVID-19, virtual classes in which students and teachers do not meet in person are of course the safest choice. There's a middle ground between a total "family bubble" in which children only have in-person interactions with their immediate relatives and perhaps go outside for a walk once in a while, and a return to the mode of education everyone was used to in 2019, though. 

That "medium-risk option" would come in the form of smaller classes, with the same group of children all the time, and without moving between classrooms. The students socially distance, keeping a distance of at least six feet, wear face masks during most of their instruction, and frequently sanitize their hands. They don't share books, pens, or other objects. 

Judging by the fact that I've read numerous online comments in which parents complain about this recommended model, not because they think it isn't safe, but because they think it's not normal enough, not everyone is on board with this model. It's on all of us, however, to continue to play our part and take precautionary measures seriously. By doing that, schools are able to stay open or open again, despite COVID-19. 

The measures that might be implemented as children return to physical schools might be more successful if every parent has a serious discussion (or five) with their kids about how this will all work. 

These measures that will allow schools to function while reducing the spread of the coronavirus include some you'll already be extremely familiar with by now, and some unique ones:

• (Potential) COVID-positive teachers and students must stay home. This one speaks for itself. Nobody who has tested positive for COVID-19, had contacted with a confirmed case, or has symptoms should attend school. Some schools will check the temperatures of staff and students. 
• Everyone should practice proper hand hygiene, and surfaces should be disinfected very frequently.
• Students and teachers should wear face masks or cloth face coverings, except in unique circumstances where it would impair instruction — in which case social distancing should be fully enforced. 
• Forming smaller and permanent groups of students who only interact with each other, and minimize their contact with others outside of school, means creating fairly low-risk "bubbles". If nobody in the bubble is infected, the classroom can be quite safe. 
• No more sharing of items like pencils, paper, books, toys, or science props. Classroom setups in which desks are further apart, where possible with dividing barriers. Proper ventilation systems must also be set up. Regular chances to go outside and remove face masks, but at a safe physical distance. This probably means no physical education and no music lessons. 
• Children bring their own food from home.

It's not a return to normal, exactly, but it's a start — so to help keep everyone safer, parents can teach their children about the importance of these measures as they go back to school, but also check in with their kids' school to see exactly what is being done.

When these recommendations are put in place, along with technical policies regarding backup staff, what to do if a child gets sick, and so on, a fairly safe school is possible. Following the guidelines strictly means children will have a reduced risk of COVID, but that has a giant knock-on effect. When children aren't infected, neither do their older relatives, who face higher odds of severe complications, get the virus from them. All together, that means making the whole community a safer place, and that includes reducing the burden on Community Health Centers.