Back to school 2020

Speaking to the Evangeline Parish School Board, at its meeting Wednesday, were Region 4 Director of Public Health Dr. Tina Stefanski and local physician Dr. Chuck Aswell.
“There’s no playbook for this,” Dr. Stefanksi said about schools dealing with the coronavirus. “We are all going to do our best with the children’s safety. What happens in your schools is going to impact your hospitals and nursing homes. It’s just going to be a domino effect.”
As Dr. Stefanski said, challenges will come into play when children go back to school because they “present with a wide range of symptoms.” She added, “the symptoms are so broad. It’s not like the flu where it’s a pretty typical syndrome. And, many children are asymptomatic, which is why it’s really important for mask wearing and staying six-feet apart.”
She went on to say, “If one child in the classroom tests positive or shows symptoms typical of COVID, as long as no one else was six-feet of that child for more than 15 minutes then nobody else in the classroom will have to be quarantined. That child will go home for a period of 10 days or so.”
Entire classrooms will not be quarantined until and unless there are multiple students showing symptoms within a two week period, according to Dr. Stefanski.
She then said it is “wise” to continue to push back different events because “the more we can push things back helps to try to give the virus time to drop off.”
Dr. Stefanski encouraged “families to follow the guidance and try to do everything they can over the next two-and-a-half weeks to give kids the best chance at success because that’s going to be really important to keep everybody at school.”
Dr. Aswell then took the floor and told the board “physicians in our community will not write excuses for wearing a mask unless it is really an exceptional case.” He added, “wearing a mask and staying six-feet apart is an really important thing for our kids.”
He told the board though, kids cannot spread the coronavirus based on recent studies. As a result, he said the classrooms are “about as safe as they can get.”
Dr. Aswell went on to say it is important for kids to return to school because it provides them with nutrition, physical activity, social and emotional interactions, and being directly taught.”
Both doctors went on to field questions from the board.
Dr. Aswell concluded, “We don’t know what’s going to happen, but you are doing the best you can.”