RTV6ABCA school in Indiana was forced to send a student home just hours after reopening after they tested positive for the virus.
Greenfield Central Junior High School opened its doors for the first time in months on Thursday, July 30, and within a few hours had sent several students home after receiving information of one of them having the virus.
The question of sending children back to school has been an ongoing debate in the US with many raising concerns of young people’s well-being
Greenfield Central Junior High School/FacebookThe school was informed by the county health department of the child’s positive test and, as well as sending that particular student home, the school had to send anyone who had been in close contact with them home as well. All the students sent home now have to quarantine for 14 days, reported The New York Times.
Harold E. Olin, superintendent of the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation said, ‘We knew it was a when, not an if,’ but was still shocked that it happened on day one of the school opening.
To prevent similar situations happening, many schools that were once planning to reopen have changed course and have decided to be online only. Two of California’s largest public school districts, Los Angles and San Diego, had planned a partial physical return to schools, but have since boycott this plan.
PexelsDespite this being evidence that students may quickly contract the virus, there have been protests against the idea of children having to wear masks to school.
Last week, the Million Unmasked March took place in Illinois. The march’s organiser Michael Rebresh said, ‘This is a free country. If I don’t want to live in Illinois, I can move but no state owns my child. I’m not an indentured servant to the state. They don’t get to tell me what to do.’
Rebresh added:
I’m teaching my children that no, you’re not going to die from COVID-19. You might get sick. Everybody might get sick, but there’s a 99.6% recovery rate with this virus.
Someone else who has a blasé approach to students contracting the virus is Missouri Governor Mike Parson who still wants schools to reopen.
PA ImagesIn a recent radio interview, Parson said:
These kids have got to get back to school – they’re at the lowest risk possible, and if they do get COVID-19, which they will, and they will when they go to school, they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctors offices – they’re going to go home and get over it and most of it all proves out to be that way.
While young people only make up a small amount of the country’s coronavirus deaths, that doesn’t mean they aren’t still dying from it: for example, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on June 27, 14 people between the aged of 0 to 24 died from the virus.
All deaths are deaths that could arguably have been prevented – and keeping schools closed could be a key factor to keeping young people safe.
It’s okay to not panic about everything going on in the world right now. LADbible and UNILAD’s aim with our campaign, Cutting Through, is to provide our community with facts and stories from the people who are either qualified to comment or have experienced first-hand the situation we’re facing. For more information from the World Health Organization, click here.
