Linn County has an opportunity.
Gov. Kate Brown’s announcement last Friday, Oct. 30, is making it a bit easier to get students back in school (see story on page 1).
Indeed, across Oregon, 130,000 students were immediately allowed to return to school in person following the governor’s press conference, in which she announced she was lowering the COVID metrics that effectively kept most of Oregon’s kids at home.
Our own students in east Linn County aren’t quite there, though. Our COVID case numbers are still slightly too high for a return to in-person classes.
Linn County has had 148 new cases per 100,000 residents in the last two weeks, and our cap is 129 for grade school students to immediately return.
We can do better. We must.
Children need to be in a familiar and effective school setting, in person, to develop socially, emotionally and academically. If a child doesn’t have siblings, school can be a very effective alternative to teach them how to work with peers, communicate and get along.
Experts tell us that kids are getting depressed, spending all day staring at screens, and the youngest children, who are still learning how to read, face precipitous challenges in developing the skills they need for future academic success by using an online platform they may struggle to interpret.
What’s more, as the governor said, child abuse reporting is down significantly, as children no longer have contact with mandatory reporters who can help protect them. This, at the same time as domestic violence is on the rise. It would be logical to asume that child abuse is climbing similarly, an invisible pandemic hidden from view behind the rising and falling waves of coronavirus.
For so many reasons, children need to return to school, and we are tantalizingly close in this county. If we dropped our transmission rate just 10 or 15 percent in the next few weeks, we could easily have students back in school by the end of the month.
It will take a concerted effort. Those of us who are COVID-critical may not want to wear masks or socially distance, but thatmay be what it’s going to take to help us make sure the numbers get cut enough to get our kids back in school. It may take a collective effort to help the most vulnerable, our youngest children, get the education they need to succeed.
All it will take is better adherence to the guidelines we’ve been hearing for months now: Wash your hands, wear a mask and stay 6 feet apart when you’re near someone you don’t live with. Scientists say it takes just 15 minutes of interaction within 6 feet of a COVID-positive person to contract the disease. That includes co-workers, friends and family we decide to visit.
We know it’s very difficult to say no to our friends, to refuse to engage. We’re all sick of this pandemic and the response that’s been called for, and we know public officials are sick of it too.
This has been a hard year, full of sacrifice for all of us, but we have a choice in what we sacrifice: our social lives and uncovered faces, or what we are willing to forfeit to help preserve the lives of our elderly and the education of our youth. We think it’s an honorable sacrifice, and a responsibility we can collectively bear.
Our margin of error is slim because we aren’t a very large county. Every individual case of COVID counts heavily against us.
But we can wear the masks in public, wash our hands, and limit social calls to prevent transmission.
Those who are not concerned about dying of COVID themselves can help contribute very directly to the quality of life of our children by simply taking some extra precautions.
It may take a village to re-open our schools.