Back to School in a Wave

This is the first September that I'm not going to school as a teacher OR a student since I was 4 years old (not counting maternity leaves for all my spring babies), and all I can think about is the giant Covid wave engulfing all the little ones without any mitigations even suggested. 

"New" research says that kids actually DO get harmed by Covid, which is something most should have known years ago. For a while there, the story was that kids carry it, making schools the number one vector of transmission, but somehow aren't actually affected by it, which is clearly malarky! Even without an eye to long term damage, just being sick for a few weeks several times a year takes a told. As a trustee in 2022, my phone rang off the hook with parents frantic that their kids were getting sick again. I talked to parents with kids in the hospital, so I can imagine in what universe people ever believed it's harmless.

Salon reports, 

"For years, public health experts have said that Covid-19 infections in children are 'mild.' . . . While some children with the coronavirus are admitted to the ICU and there are pediatric deaths, studies have found that underlying medical conditions including obesity, diabetes, cardiac and lung disorders, increase the risk of severe outcomes."

They site a study (Gross et al., 2024) that looked at over 5,000 kids from 6-17, comparing those who had and never had Covid, and found 14 different symptoms and conditions in the Covid crowd, or pediatric PASC (postacute sequelae of Covid), aka Long Covid. 

"These symptoms affected almost every organ system. . . . These indices correlated with poorer overall health and quality of life. The index emphasizes neurocognitive, pain, and gastrointestinal symptoms in school-age children." 

The article abstract is markedly different than concerns with obesity, and it's curious the Salon article completely dismissed the first listed concern: neurocognitive symptoms. 

Here's the full list of risks for kids:

Comparing Covid to non-Covid cases, the biggest difference in the 6-11 age range are back or neck pain, trouble with memory or focusing, feeling lightheaded or dizzy, stomach pain, nausea or vomiting, tiredness after walking, heart palpitations during exercise, and itchy skin. In the 12-17 age range, most evident is a change/loss in smell or taste and tired after walking. 

That the range between Covid and non-Covid is larger in the younger kids, and for more symptoms, seems to suggest that they're hit harder.  

Beyond the physical symptoms, there are mental health impacts from any chronic illness. Sam Norpel created this graphic to demonstrate what it's like to live with Long Covid. Imagine feeling this way as a child. 

The Salon article also cites a study from two years ago (Lopez-Leon et al., 2022), that estimates up to 25% of children infected with SARS-CoV-2 could develop Long Covid. So, how is this new information??

The lead author of the recent study, Dr. Rachel Gross, said,

"This is a public health crisis for children. We know that child health is so critically important for how children grow and even as they become adults, that chronic illness during childhood and adverse experiences during childhood greatly affects the adults that they can become."

Dr. Dean Blumberg added,

"Some of these kids with Long Covid, they fall behind in school. . . . A lot have had some neurocognitive effects, and that really interferes with learning."

But then he calls for an increase in vaccination rates!!! Vaccines help us survive that acute infection, but they don't do much to decrease transmission or reduce the rate of Long Covid.

We need the kids and staff to wear masks in class. Period. 

We can vaccinate everyone in the world, and we'll still have Covid causing longterm brain issues. We can clean the air to reduce transmission, but kids will still get from the other thirty kids in the room. Vaccines and cleaning the air definitely help, but well-fitting masks worn at all times in the building will actually keep kids from getting sick, and they can help starting TODAY! We don't need to wait for school boards to give us permission to wear them. Two-way masking works better than one-way, so the more kids wearing them in a room, the better the odds that every kid will go home without unwittingly bringing home a virus to share with their families. It's awkward being that one kid in a mask. I hold out hope that, somehow, parents will realize they have the agency to dramatically reduce the rate of infection in their home with N95s, and the more they ask their kids to mask, the easier it will be to be a covid-caring kid!

BUT, we were just told by Canadian Public Health that if we can't get vaccinated (because they refuse to order any non-mRNA vaccines), then we should improve our hand hygiene. I can't get over that. At this point in the pandemic, when even the WHO admitted the virus is clearly airborne, washing your hands does diddly. They mention masks, but hand hygiene was first.  

It's beyond bizarre, at this point, that health officials are so avoidant of masks in class, the very thing that will help the most. The Beaverton's absurdist parody of the situation is way too close to the reality:

"As Covid rates skyrocket, health officials warn Canadians to wear plenty of sunscreen. . . . When asked how Canadians should be protecting themselves from the current Covid wave making its way across Canada and the inevitable Covid waves the country will face in the fall and winter, Tam was adamant that peopel not forget other forms of sun protection, like hats and sunglasses."