COVID-19, Children, and the Reopening of Schools - Part II

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A few weeks ago, I wrote about my own personal decision for why I would feel okay with sending my kids back to school if the schools were able to implement recommended public health measures. Three weeks have now gone by and we have again hit new milestones for COVID-19 in the United States and in my home state of GA. We need bold action to stop the community spread. We are going to have to make really tough choices: do we want to go out to eat at a restaurant and host a small party with a few families? Or, do we want to safely send our kids to school eventually? It’s time to mask up, stay home, and start planning NOW for what a safe reopening of schools could look like when we can get community spread controlled and on a downward trajectory.

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COVID-19 and the Reopening of Schools

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Should schools reopen this Fall? For many of us who have been attempting to balance full time work and full-time childcare responsibilities in the middle of this pandemic, this is the million dollar question! As a mother of three kids (ages 4 months, 5 years, and 7 years) attempting to work full-time at home as a doctoral epidemiologist involved in COVID-19 research, with a spouse on the frontlines as an emergency medicine physician, I have been scouring the literature for months looking for data and evidence on this very topic to help inform my own level of risk tolerance for school reopening. I’m going to attempt to answer this critical question in this post.

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A stranger saved me...and my boobs

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I had the cab driver drop me off at the convention center and after paying FIFTY DOLLARS (!!) for that ride, I RAN into the mothers room at the conference. I immediately plugged in. Started pumping. And….very…little…milk. NOOOO! It was like the whole pump was on super low power and I just could not get it to have enough pressure. THE MEMBRANES WERE NOT THE PROBLEM. My pump was just broken. I was ALMOST in tears. My talk started in 10 minutes. I didn’t know what to do. I was 100% CERTAIN I would be leaking as I got up on stage to present to the room of 200+ people on the talk that I had hoped to have the morning to prepare for but clearly had other things to worry about.

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