For decades, the end of summer marked the return to school. An exciting time for many children who went back to their schools to learn, meet with their friends, and start a new year in their education. There wasn’t much debate about it.
However, a year and a half ago the world changed. The pandemic forced millions of children to take classes from home and it is until now after many months that schools are reopening and a great debate around that has started.
From whether to wear masks to even whether even schools should reopen at all, are some of the subjects of the heated discussions between parents, schools, and government that has taken place over the past few weeks.
State Health Departments have been measuring and analyzing the data emerging from this operation to reopen schools and the results are worrying.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reported that during August a total of 505,564 total child cases of COVID-19 were registered throughout the country, the highest mark for this demographic line during the entire pandemic. The number of children hospitalized for COVID-19 also reached an all-time high in the United States.
The Delta variant seems to be advancing rapidly in the nation, verifying what scientists have warned about the high level of contagiousness of this coronavirus mutation. This variant also significantly increases the chances of hospitalization, for which the authorities are very concerned.
Children under 11 years of age are still ineligible to receive the vaccine against the virus so they are exposed to contracting the disease and developing symptoms that are dangerous to their health.
“We should have enough of the data to examine and make a decision as we get into late September, the beginning of October. Then the data will be presented to the FDA, and the FDA will make a determination whether they will grant that under an emergency use authorization or some other mechanism,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
