Per California public health authorities, an unvaccinated elementary school teacher last May infected more than half of his students after removing masks to read.
It’s a perfect illustration of how simple it is to derail attempts to safeguard children who are too young to be vaccinated, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A Marin County Public Health team stated in the CDC’s weekly report on mortality and illness that the instructor arrived to work despite having Covid-19 symptoms and then removed their mask to read to the young children. According to the investigators, the instructor believed the symptoms were caused by allergies rather than an illness.
Students infected in school
Twelve of the 22 pupils in the class were sick, including eight of the ten students in the two front rows.
Unvaccinated, unmasked teacher infected more than half of students in class with Covid-19, CDC reports https://t.co/3XmHqQCYgA
— KMOV (@KMOV) August 28, 2021
“The virus was introduced into the classroom by a teacher who worked in school while she was both symptomatic and unvaccinated, and who was unmasked while reading aloud to a class,” Walensky said at a White House Covid-19 briefing on Friday.
“We know how to keep our children safe at school. We have the resources.”
Vaccination is the most effective method to safeguard everyone, according to the CDC’s school guidelines. “Vaccination is the most effective public health approach for combating the COVID-19 epidemic. Vaccination may assist schools in returning to in-person studying as well as extracurricular activities and sports in a safe manner, “It declares.
Children under the age of 12 are not eligible for immunization, but the CDC advises that people around them be vaccinated to protect them.
Encouraging teachers to get vaccinated
During the talk of CNN with Santora, the county’s deputy health officer, said that authorities had been encouraging teachers to get vaccinated since January, but many had not. “We witnessed personally that it wasn’t the students that made the instructors ill. It was supposed to be the other way around, “CNN spoke with Santora.
According to Santora, Marin County held “Super Saturday” activities to urge teachers and employees to get vaccinated, although some instructors are still unprotected. “When adults choose not to be vaccinated, they are underestimating their risk of hospitalization,” she told CNN.
She claims that 90 percent of patients in county hospitals with Covid-19 are unvaccinated, with many between the ages of 30 and 50.
The epidemic at the primary school served as a warning to the county that the Delta variety would make outbreak prevention more difficult, she said.
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