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I've been wary to discuss school reopening here b/c, in the absence of unified federal public health policy, we've had to create regional COVID approaches, w/ vastly different testing, tracing, and control outcomes- and success in this should be the basis of any school plan 1/
and Twitter is not a regional forum- so conversations can get confusing to anyone really quick- but, as a rural practitioner for low-income families I want to offer a regional view- first, I practice and live in VT that has a 0.6% positivity rate and expert contact tracing- 2/
so, given above data, the conversation can be had- and, given our rurality, there are unique infrastructure considerations- a significant portion of the kids I serve in rural VT do not have internet or cell service at their homes, and their parents work low wage essential jobs 3/
this means during online days of school, in the absence of other plans, many are home all day alone- not by neglect- but by necessity- b/c new COVID relief on hold- $600 unemployment bonus sunsetting- we have offered these families no other choice 4/
these are kids at base who get 3 meals/day at school and whose districts delivered emergency food kits by bus this spring just to ensure they did not go hungry- add increased rates of kids severely food insecure sec to COVID (16.5%) and it hurts- 5/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/07/09/about-14-million-children-in-the-us-are-not-getting-enough-to-eat/
I say this not to discount the risk- but to highlight two truths- 1) that in the absence of pre-existing successful national COVID policy there can be no national school recommendations- b/c each state has been forced to look inward and care for their own to varying success 6/
2) rural low-income areas offer their own considerations- remote is real and when we pair rurality with a lack of national structural support and infrastructure (livable wage, tech equity, social supports, etc)- bringing kids to school has long been the anchor of equity 7/
Dr Boyd said it best- the solution is equity policy- support schools, people, & public health- in the meantime, this VT FNP offers rural considerations because the spring social and mental health crises of the kids I serve are too fresh of mind 8/8 https://www.thenation.com/article/society/school-open-safety-coronavirus/
