To date, only 1 in 3 children between the ages of 12 and 17 have received a COVID vaccine nationwide. The Biden government hopes to increase these numbers before school starts in the fall.
“Now is the time for families whose children have not yet been vaccinated,” said Erin Sauber-Schatz, director of the CDC’s Community Interventions and Critical Populations Task Force. “It takes five weeks to get fully vaccinated. If you got your first vaccination today, the second would be July 30th and you would be fully vaccinated on August 13th.
If a high school could document that everyone in the building was fully vaccinated, the school would look very much like it did before the pandemic. The reality, of course, is that most schools have a mix of vaccinated and unvaccinated students and staff.
The updated policy notes that fully vaccinated staff and students may not need to wear masks in school. (Although masks are required on public transport due to the layout of the CDC, they would have to mask themselves on school buses.)
For students who are too young to be vaccinated at this point, the CDC suggests several strategies to reduce the risk of transmission: in particular, wearing masks from the age of 2 and keeping physical distance, if possible, indoors in schools ( even if children are vaccinated).
Additional protective measures recommended in the CDC guidelines include hand washing and good room ventilation and cleaning procedures. In addition, the CDC urges any student or employee with signs of an infectious disease to stay home, test for COVID and, if necessary, quarantine.
The guidelines place an emphasis on school teaching and emphasize the need to be flexible. “If 3 feet isn’t feasible, it shouldn’t keep the kids away from school,” said Sauber-Schatz. “In our guide, we focus on key prevention strategies, and they should be removed one at a time and then closely monitored” to ensure that infection rates do not rise.
The CDC adds that enforcement of these guidelines is the responsibility of the local jurisdiction.
In California:
State health officials announced on Friday that they will be releasing updated guidelines for the fall semester next week to encourage schools to return to full face-to-face teaching.
The guidelines will be aligned with the CDCs and focus on supporting COVID-19 testing for schools and security measures such as wearing face coverings indoors. California Department of Health officials said they would require students and staff to continue wearing face covers indoors, regardless of vaccination status, to “ensure all children are treated equally”.
“At the start of the new year, students should be able to go to school without worrying about feeling different or singled out because they are vaccinated or not,” said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state health and welfare agency, in a statement.
In California, more than 34% of the 3.1 million children 12 to 17 years of age are fully vaccinated from Friday, according to the vaccine data portal of the CDPH.
To fund the state school system, Governor Gavin Newsom also signed a funding package on Friday that will provide nearly $ 124 billion to support advanced after-school and summer learning programs, increase the number of school staff, and make pre-kindergarten free for all of 4-year-olds by 2025.
San Francisco Health Officer Dr. Susan Philip, released a statement Friday supporting the full return to personal classrooms for all grade levels this fall, citing low community transmission and high vaccination rates in the city.
“Last school year there were fewer than five cases of COVID transmission in face-to-face learning schools among 48,000 students and teachers, even during the height of our winter surge,” she said in the statement, adding that the current vaccines are more effective against the more Infections Delta variant that spreads in the state.
Philip said masks are required in school settings, but only indoors, and no physical distancing is required. Additional safety precautions are in place, including increased ventilation and symptom screenings.
Over the next few weeks, parents may also be wondering how to protect unvaccinated children during summer vacations and outings.
The CDC recommends do not travel until you are fully vaccinatedbut that puzzles many families, said the pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Mayo Clinic DR. Nipunie Rajapakse and Baylor College of Medicine Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases in Adults and Children Dr. Jill Weatherhead.
“That really puts families in a difficult position when there are parents and older siblings who have been vaccinated and younger siblings who have not been vaccinated,” said Weatherhead.
Don’t worry: according to our sources, you probably don’t need to leave unvaccinated children at home – although much depends on individual circumstances and a family’s willingness to take risks. However, Weatherhead and Rajapakse said many families can make traveling with unvaccinated children acceptable. Here’s how:
Flying:
Last summer, Weatherhead’s husband drove the couple’s two young children from Houston to Michigan on their annual summer vacation. This year they flew – with plenty of hand sanitizer and spacing whenever possible. They were able to get hold of flights on an airline that departs from an airport that is not crowded and allows them to choose their own seats when boarding. Of course, this isn’t an option with most airlines, and Delta, one of the last U.S. carriers to leave middle rows vacant, began booking those seats in May.
Flights haven’t proven to be super spreaders, although who’s sitting near you matters: On a September flight From Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to New Zealand, at least four people within two rows of an infectious passenger have contracted COVID-19.
“You never know who is sitting near you, especially on long flights when you are in close proximity,” said Rajapakse. “And at airports, people from different parts of the country and the world mingle in a very small space.”
