Governor Mike Dunleavy held a press conference on Tuesday evening where he was joined by members of his administration to provide an update on the looming statewide school openings later this month.
Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Anne Zink, offered medical insight on how to keep students safe during the school year. One aspect of the pandemic she discussed is the possibility that children do better than adults when they are infected with COVID: “It’s pretty clear that kids do much better if they get COVID, compared to adults. We see fewer hospitalizations and we see fewer deaths. Kids can get COVID and kids can get sick, but much less-so than influenza and some other diseases, and much less so than adults. In general, in Alaska, we have 14.3% of all of our cases are children – but they are much less-likely to need hospitalization.”
She also mentioned that younger children may be less likely to communicate the disease: “There’s some evidence that children under ten may be less likely to spread the disease. There was a big study that looked at when a child had COVID, were they going to spread it to their family members. There have been some studies that show that children may have higher viral loads, and how much they transmit that virus to others is still something to be determined. This is an area of a lot of ongoing science and research.”
While distance learning may seem like a safer proposition, Dr. Zink discussed the inherent risks involved with that method: “Social interaction is key to childhood development and many children’s distance learning is less than ideal. Things like not having internet or computers, learning disabilities, language barriers. Young children really need that kind of space together and have a hard time learning independently. Schools also provide a ton of other really important things that are good for our kids, mentally and physically, including meal programs, physical activity, after-school, childhood abuse detection, and so forth.”
Commissioner Michael Johnson of the Department of Education and Early Development noted that his department has worked closely with school districts statewide to help them decide the best methods of getting their districts ready to educate students safely.
The Governor says, ultimately, the heart of the matter is communicating with local school districts to get questions answered: “It’s going to be really important that you talk to your local school district and your local school to get any of the details on the openings and the plans that they’ve put together. From my perspective, we want to get kids education. We want to get kids back to school.”
The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District is planning to open on August 24 with parents’ choice. That means that parents have options: allow your student to return to school buildings, participate in remote-learning affiliated with your child’s school, or enroll in the Connections Homeschool program.
