Students and teacher wearing masks in classroom.Photo: Getty
A new study fromCenters for Disease Control and Preventionhas foundCOVID-19outbreaks at schools often originate with teachers.
The findings, published Monday, said “that educators play an important role in in-school transmission,” citing “an investigation of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in a Georgia school district during Dec. 1, 2020 to Jan. 22, 2021.”
The investigation, researchers say, “identified nine clusters of COVID-19 cases involving 13 educators and 32 students at six elementary schools” which, according toCNN, were located in Atlanta suburbs.
According to researchers, “Educators might play a central role in in-school transmission networks.”
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Students wearing masks at school.Getty
They further advise, “Preventing SARS-CoV-2 infections through multifaceted school mitigation measuresand COVID-19 vaccination ofeducators is a critical component of preventing in-school transmission.”
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday that “The two main reasons for the spread of COVID-19 in these schools were inadequate physical distancing and mask adherence,“CNNreports.
“In the schools,physical distancingof at least 6 feet was not possible because of the high number of students in class, as well as because of classroom layouts,” she explained.
Walensky also said that the results of the study “highlight the importance of scaling up vaccination efforts across the country, including the continued need to prioritize teachers and other school staff for vaccination as part of the frontline essential workers, consistent with the recommendation of theAdvisory Committee on Immunization Practices.”
Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine.Justin Tallis - Pool / Getty
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Earlier this month, PresidentJoe Bidentouched on a troubling exodus of women from the workforce over the past year and the fact that millions of children are still out of physical school. He agreed withCBS News' Norah O’Donnell’s question, telling her “it is a national emergency — itgenuinely is a national emergency.”
Speaking about the statistics that show that roughly 20 million American children have been out of a classroom for at least a year, Biden, 78, spoke in his CBS interview about the need to reopen schools “safely,” with precautions.
“I thinkit’s time for schools to reopen safely. Safely,” he told O’Donnell. “You have to have fewer people in the classroom. You have to have ventilation systems that have been reworked. Our CDC commissioner is going to be coming out with science-based judgment, within I think as early as Wednesday, to lay out what the minimum requirements are.”
“I think about the price so many of my grandkids and your kids are going to pay for not having had the chance to finish whatever it was … I think they’re going through a lot, these kids,” Biden added.
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source: people.com
