SAN ANTONIO — As a parent, sending your child back to school during the pandemic can be extremely stressful. But if you teach your child to take the precautions they've used at home all summer, and tell them to do the same in at school, that goes a long way in keeping them safe.
It starts with daily preparation. "As a parent every single day generally you're going to want to try to make sure that your child doesn't have a fever, and then there are other symptoms of COVID: a cough, congestion, runny nose, vomiting, diarrhea, bodyaches, very similar to the flu even sometimes with those symptoms," said Dr. Robert Sanders, who is a physician at the PediExpress Urgent Care Center within the University Health System.
He says if they have any of those symptoms, don't send them to school. Dr Sanders told us, "The next thing you'll do after you kind of do your assessment of your symptoms for the day, is to talk again about the hand hygiene and washing your hands and wearing a mask staying as much as you can away from other people."
If at all possible try to avoid the bus. Dr. Sanders said, "I would say it definitely is it is safer to drive your child to school. if you can drive your child to school I would definitely encourage that as a parent for sure."
When they return home from school for the day, Dr. Sanders advises, "Generally my recommendation is again, as they walk in the door to wash their hands. The other thing you might want to consider is changing your clothes, out of their school clothes to your play clothes at home and put the clothes right into the wash machine and wash them for the day."
And as soon as it becomes available get that flu shoot. Dr. Sanders said, "The flu shot is crucial this year especially with COVID being certainly very active here. If we are not immunized in the community and our families against the flu people could potential he get very very sick potentially contracting both at the same time."
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