The mindset (and plan) we need to survive another COVID winter

Oct. 8, 2022  |  By Laura Hardie   

When we get through this pandemic, I think we all want to look back at our collective actions and say everything we did was both helpful and necessary to keep individuals and families safe and minimize the impact of this unforgiving disease. 

As we've all experienced, COVID-19 greatly affects people mentally, physically, and financially. 

I want to be able to say that we did absolutely everything we could to limit that devastation.  

I want to feel like our school district has a proactive plan in place for when COVID surges happen this winter, as many are predicting they will, and that we will be protected, rather than feeling like the school system will be in react mode when it's too late. 

For example, this past May not long after mandatory masking in schools ended, there was an increase in cases in the Brookside Primary School kindergarten. We received an email from the school nurse about the surge. It was too late; our kindergartener tested positive that day. 

Afterward, no additional interventions were put in place to protect other kids and families beyond the isolation of those testing positive, per CDC guidelines. 

I understand the school district has data about case levels last year. Can we look at that data to determine when we should temporarily use the tools in our toolbox to reduce transmission? Such as masking, testing, distancing, and outdoor learning. Data shows people are willing to temporarily return to interventions like masking when cases are high.

In an Aug. 10 Fall 2022 COVID Guidance memo, the Vermont Agency of Education told local school administrators that nurses would take the lead in handling COVID-19 safety at schools. This is a change from when there were structured COVID-19 safety programs in past years, such as contact tracing and testing plans. 

Without that structure, school districts have a responsibility to communicate the nurse and school officials' plans for a potential COVID surge or outbreak.

If you look at other state policies, like in Washington, many have guidance for times of high transmission. Washington defines an outbreak as three or more cases in a core group and requires schools to have a plan to communicate with families and respond. 

Vermont was a leader at the beginning of the pandemic. Why don't we have proactive definitions and requirements like this now? Most states around Vermont reference the CDC's Guidelines for Schools in their recommendations. Vermont does not. In doing so, Vermont is setting aside the CDC’s recommendations around screening, ventilation, management of cases, and more.

Since there is no definition of an outbreak or requirement to respond if one occurs, families are expected to live with the risk of getting re-infected again and again. Reinfection because of a lack of mitigation strategies and the false idea that the pandemic is "over" concedes to mass disability, suffering, and death. This cannot be normalized. 

Our kindergartener is now in first grade. In September, she tested positive for the second time this year. She was asymptomatic. We found out she had COVID because we tested her daily before sending her to school, knowing she had been exposed to positive family members in our household. 

Though, since she is fully vaccinated and had no symptoms, we did not have to test her under current school guidelines. We easily could have sent her to school without knowing if she had COVID. In addition, we had no obligation to report her COVID case to the school. For both reasons, case counts in schools are likely vastly undercounted. 

Overall, our situation demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the individualistic approach, in which people are left to protect themselves without the full support of their communities.

Pandemic journalist Ed Jong recently wrote in The Atlantic, “Each person’s choices inextricably affect their community, and the threat to the collective always exceeds that to the individual…to handle such threats, collective action is necessary.”

As I think about my daughter’s second go-around with COVID, it’s hard not to imagine the implications for her future. With every infection, data shows the risk of long COVID increases. A new report by the CDC shows children who have had COVID-19 are at increased risk for blood clots, heart problems, diabetes, and kidney failure.

Our children have the rest of their lives to live, potentially with conditions that were preventable. Preventable only if we choose to have a mindset that prioritizes protecting the collective. 

To the school board and leaders: Please have a plan in place to keep children and families protected when the risk of COVID transmission is high. If the state won't do it, please be brave enough to consider it yourselves so we can say we did everything we could – for each other. 

Parents and community members: Please know that we make a difference by staying informed, sharing our perspectives, and having an open dialogue with each other. Even when it's hard, and especially when it's hard.

For additional information about COVID-19 and school safety, please see this toolkit developed by the People’s CDC or find it at urgencyofequity.org.

Laura Hardie lives in Waterbury with her husband and two children, ages 4 and 6. This commentary is edited from comments made to the HUUSD School Board on Sept. 28.