As COVID cases hit record highs, schools navigate a complicated return to class

ATLANTA - With schools reopening, and coronavirus cases once again surging, public health microbiologist Dr. Amber Schmidtke, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Saint Mary, says many parents are torn about sending their kids back to class.

Schmidtke says her local school system in Leavenworth, Kansas, where her two sons attend classes requires masks, but many schools do not.

Even those who do practice universal masking are struggling to deal with the most contagious variant so far in the pandemic, she says.

"As a parent, it is kind of a scary thing, with something that spreads as quickly as omicron does and as easily as it does, you do wonder how they can successfully pull off school lunch, for example, where everybody has to take off their mask at once," Schmidtke says.

There is a good chance, Schmidtke says, the omicron variant could peak quickly in the US, maybe by the end of the month.

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In the meantime, because it is so contagious, she warns, a lot of people will get sick or test positive for the virus.

"So, if you don't take omicron seriously, it will disrupt your life," Schmidtke says. "I think it's in the schools' best interested to have as much control in that disruption as they can, and you get that control from limiting the spread as much as possible."

With the Metro Atlanta are seeing intense viral transmission, Schmidtke says, it makes sense for school districts like Atlanta, DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton and Rockdale Counties to pivot to remote learning until next week.

"So, we are seeing some school districts transition to a virtual environment for the first couple of weeks, to really just let that disease transmission that probably happened over the Christmas holiday and late winter holidays to kind of calm down before bringing people back into the building," she says.  "It also gives them time to strategize and come up with contingency plans, filtration for the rooms, those sorts of things.

Schmidtke says now is a good time for families to upgrade their masks, transitioning from cloth masks to more protective KN95 or N95 respirators.

She recommends buying them at pharmacies or looking for N95 masks at retailers like Home Depot, where you can find them in the paint aisle.

Schmidtke also recommends the non-profit website www.projectN95.org, which sells both adult and kid-sized KN95 and N95 masks.

"They have vetted the different masks that are out there so that you know you're not buying something that is counterfeit, and you can trust that it actually works," Schmidtke says.  "We just need to be careful, you know, that just because Amazon is very convenient, and it will be there in two days, doesn't always mean you're buying what you think you're buying."

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