By Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz, The Cut, September 30, 2021
The toll the pandemic has taken on parents, teachers, and health-care workers has been well documented. But comparatively little has been said about how school nurses are handling the return to classrooms.
Now they’re on the frontlines, trying to keep students safe as school districts insist on full reopenings, a decision the CDC began pushing in the spring when case numbers were low and vaccines made normal seem within reach. But now, infections are nearing all-time highs, and students — especially those under 12 who remain unvaccinated — are at even more risk of getting sick thanks to the super-contagious Delta variant. Despite this, at least eight states — including Florida and South Carolina — have moved to ban mask mandates, and mass COVID outbreaks in schools around the country have forced them to close. Even student and staff deaths have not convinced some areas to impose safety measures.
School nurses have borne the brunt of these outbreaks. Almost entirely responsible for contact tracing and quarantine placement as well as their regular jobs, they’ve found themselves at the nexus of this crisis. The Cut spoke with five of them about sick children, 24/7 contact tracing, and the COVID conspiracy theorists that “are sacrificing our kids.”
Comments (0)