Half of the kids in my daughter's school were sick in mid-February 2020—so many that they postponed the Valentine's Day celebrations.

My daughter had been sick repeatedly the past few winters, usually after buying school lunch. I had her talk me through the lunch process, step by step, and discovered that every student typed their "lunch number" into a keypad just before getting their food.

My daughter always washed her hands right before lunch. I reminded her repeatedly, and she assured me she always did. Her careful hand-washing was undermined by the lunch line keypad.

Just before eating, all kids touched the same keypad, the same surface. Sneezing, sniffling, coughing, nose-picking kids. My daughter's school admirably changed the lunch line keypad practice, after I asked if it might be connected to the rampant crud raging through the school.

I can't stop thinking about that lunch line keypad, and how it probably affected the health of hundreds of people over the past few years in our small town—and how many similar practices in schools across the country will need to be inspected and revised...

...to keep children, food services staff, custodians, librarians, counselors, administrators, teachers—and EVERYONE they interact with—safe from a highly transmissible virus with as-yet-unknown long-term effects.

How many lunch line keypads will be overlooked this fall?