Doctor shares 5-point COVID strategy for getting kids back to school safely
With one of the recommendations, Dr. Ashish Jha says there's just no excuse not to do it.
With COVID-19 cases increasing among children, and more school districts opening, many parents are asking what can be done to keep their kids safe.
Dr. Ashish Jha of the Brown University School of Public Health was on "Good Morning America" Monday to talk about his 5-point strategy to get students back to school safely.
1) Vaccines
Dr. Jha says vaccines should be mandated for all adults in school, with standard exceptions. He says schools should also consider mandating vaccines for children 12 and up, who can get it right now. He says vaccinating everyone who can get vaccinated protects children who can't get the shot right now.
2) Upgrade ventilation in schools
Dr. Jha says all schools should have already done this or should do it now.
On his Twitter feed, he says Congress gave billions of dollars to upgrade schools. He says improving ventilation can be as easy and inexpensive as having in-room portable air filters.
3) Masks
Dr. Jha says masks help. He adds higher quality masks, such as the KF94, should be considered in high transmission areas, saying they're cheap and widely available.
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4) Testing
Dr. Jha says we now have so much testing capability and capacity that there's no excuse not to do testing. He says once a week pooled testing is cheap and easy. Schools can also consider cheap rapid antigen tests.
5) Distancing
He says schools should avoid super crowded assembly halls, indoor concerts, any kind of super crowded event. Dr. Jha explains this will be critical over the next month or so as the delta variant peaks and then hopefully begins to go down.
