Schoolchildren Encouraged to Wear Masks at School

The COVID-19 virus has waned significantly since it bore down on us in March 2020. In its wake, it left over six hundred people dead and many more still living with residual effects of the illness. And while the Omicron variants that are present are not as deadly or severe, parents of schoolchildren returning to classes are still being encouraged to send their little ones to school with their face masks. Director of Public Health and Wellness, Doctor Melissa Diaz-Musa explained that while there is no mask mandate in effect, because the nature of children is to have more hands-on interaction, the mask can prevent a spread of whatever is going around.

Melissa Diaz-Musa

Melissa Diaz-Musa, Director, Public Health & Wellness

“There’s no mandate at this point for any of the public health measures, but we do continue to encourage the sanitizing especially that children might sneeze or cough in their hands, constant sanitizing in each classroom, spacing if needed and wearing of masks, especially if there’s not the availability to have some distance between the kids. We remain with similar advice as we’ve had before, with regards to ensuring that if your child is sick or somebody in the home has flu-like symptoms, has a cough, cold, feeling fatigued – fever, not to send your child to school, to inform the school that somebody is at home that has tested positive for COVID-19 just to ensure that we can break this transmission and ensure that we don’t have another outbreak.”

Diaz-Musa says the schools will resume with paediatric vaccinations when schools reopen. She also encourage people who have are not up-to-date with their vaccines or boosters to get those shots when the new batch arrives in country in the next few weeks.