Parents have safety responsibility, too

It seems to me from reading newspapers on- and off-line, listening to news and radio phone-in shows and various other “noises” regarding the risk of students returning to school in a few weeks, a big part of the risk equation is absent from all discussions.

Currently, schools are clean, buildings are empty, all COVIDfree. They will remain so until inhabited in September by teachers, students, support staff, caretakers and administration, the largest group by far being the students. Recognizing this, we might consider that the highest risk of introducing COVID into the school environment is the students. So, logically, we must then back up and consider with whom the students have contact outside of their school day. This leads us to their family group and bubble. Where is the conversation around the families and how their members might take extra precautions in their daily activities?

Most of the concerns raised have been from parents, but there has been no discussion regarding their responsibility in taking extra measures in their own daily lives to ensure their children remain COVID-free. Please don’t expect others to do 100 per cent of this job for you.

How do parents maximize their children’s safety? Take extra precautions at work, revert to having groceries and prescriptions delivered, avoid unnecessary shopping and dining out, go back to the vigilance we all practised in late winter and throughout the spring.

I agree none of this is any fun, but your children are worth it! School boards are doing their very best with the resources, ingenuity, talent, and energy they have to keep your children safe. Please add that extra layer of safety by exercising rampedup vigilance at home in the months ahead.

Jane McAllister, Athens, Ont.