USF College of Public Health associate professors Dr. Jill Roberts and Dr. Katherine Drabiak went live on Facebook to answer questions and share what concerned parents and caregivers can do to protect K-12 children as they return to the classroom this school year.  

A more contagious strain and new peaks

The Delta variant is more contagious than the other COVID strains, according to Roberts.

“[With] the previous strain of coronavirus, if you got it, you’d likely spread it to one person. [With] the current strain, the Delta strain, you’re likely to spread it to eight people. So, it is significantly more contagious,” Roberts, who specializes in molecular epidemiology, said.

The return to school is going to impact case numbers, according to Roberts.

“When we talk about going back to school in the fall, we are going to need to protect the children.”

“We are watching a pretty significant increase in cases, so much so that we are predicting a peak in September that may exceed what we had seen in January, and that’s unfortunate. When we talk about going back to school in the fall, we are going to need to protect the children,” Roberts said.

A difficult choice to return in person

Drabiak, who specializes in health law, said that despite the increase in cases, we are more equipped this time around with knowledge about what we can do to minimize spread.  

“Any choices we make will entail policy tradeoffs,” she said. “Any type of mitigation efforts that we took before may have decreased transmission, but we also saw a spike in suicides, mental health problems and students not attending school. This has a particular effect on potentially exacerbating educational disparities and learning loss for lower socioeconomic students, so there is always a tradeoff to keep in mind when we’re making decisions about schooling and types of learning.”

Masks will be key to preventing spread  

Currently, only children 12 and older have access to the vaccine, so protecting younger children will require other public health mitigation efforts, according to Roberts, with a strong emphasis on masks.

“I do believe the kids should be back in school, however, they should not be back unprotected. We can put into place the mask policies that were there before and have very strict policies about sending kids to schools only if they are healthy. We don’t want any sick kids in the school,” she said.

With schools at full capacity, social distancing will be a difficult practice, Roberts said.  

“Basically, the mask is the only thing that can protect your child,” she said.

“Staying home if somebody is sick, this is something we saw over the past year, that it is ok and necessary to stay home if you’re sick from work or school,” Drabiak agreed.

Masks are currently optional for students returning to school in Florida, something that Roberts would like to see change.

“I would definitely take the hardline on that. It should definitely change and it shouldn’t have been removed in the first place,” Roberts said. “When the policies came out, they were really directed at people who were vaccinated; the take away of social distancing and masks, and the go ahead and get back out in the world, these guidelines were meant for vaccinated people, not unvaccinated. Children are unvaccinated. It’s a no brainer. There are too many possibilities. Children getting injured by COVID, having long term effects, and now looking at data from countries that got the COVID Delta strain before us it most certainly spreads through schools.”

Long-term effects of COVID in children

Roberts emphasized that the long-term effects of previous COVID infection in children is still largely unknown.

“COVID has the potential to be a dangerous disease.”

“We don’t know the long-term impact of having a COVID infection. We don’t know whether children will take that infection with them home and infect somebody who will have serious disease, and we cannot predict the ones that will go down the MIS-C road, a very serious systemic disease in which you can get inflammation in various parts of the body including the brain, heart, kidneys and other organs. It can be deadly. Children who get this usually end up in an ICU. COVID has the potential to be a dangerous disease,” said Dr. Roberts.

Drabiak added that although children make up only a small percentage of deaths from COVID, it is worrisome that children are dying.

Vaccine for children on the horizon

Roberts said the original vaccine trials for children look “really good” for children in the 2–12-year-old sets.

“However, there is a long road ahead,” she said.

Pfizer, the company currently leading in the trials process, will still need to apply for FDA approval according to Roberts.

“Best case scenario, around Christmas is when we may be able to take vacations and not have to worry about the 2–12-year-old sets,” she said.

Protecting children

“It is time to go put those masks back on again for everybody, vaccinated or unvaccinated.”

“We are definitely looking at cases starting to peak again in Hillsborough County, it’s here,” said Roberts. “It is time to go put those masks back on again for everybody, vaccinated or unvaccinated. Think about taking that mask with you everywhere again.”

“I think Dr. Roberts said it well [that] parents can make these types of decision for their kids,” Drabiak said. “It’s empowering for parents to think about what it is they can do to not only survive back to school, but to thrive.”

Story by Anna Mayor, USF College of Public Health