SOUTHERN COLORADO — Parents and teachers now have access to new guidelines from the CDC on the reopening of schools.
The CDC says face masks, hand washing, and social distancing are top priorities.
Here is an excerpt from the CDC's website:
Considerations for schools
As communities in the United States consider how to safely re-open K-12 school buildings for in-person learning and activities and keep them open, CDC offers updated considerations for mitigation strategies that school administrators can use to help protect students, teachers, and staff and slow the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19. These updated Considerations for Schools are intended to aid school administrators as they consider how to protect the health, safety, and wellbeing of students, teachers, staff, their families, and communities:
- Promoting behaviors that reduce COVID-19’s spread
- Maintaining healthy environments
- Maintaining healthy operations
- Preparing for when someone gets sick
Based on current data, if community transmission is high, then we are more likely to see outbreaks in the school system as well. However, there should be systems in place to try and stop the spread.
"The ways to limit and break that chain of transmission is through five mitigation strategies: masks, physical distancing, hand washing and respiratory etiquette, cleaning and ventilation, and contact tracing in combination with isolation and quarantine," expained NBC News Senior Medical Correspondent Dr. John Torres.
He added that the CDC suggests a layered approach. So, basically using more than one of those strategies provides the best protection.
