After nearly two years of confinement at home, students are raring to return to classrooms.

Even parents, no matter how much they adore their children, will welcome the return of in-
person learning, as education is carried out with much less assistance from parents.

The full return to face-to-face classes will have to wait until students and teachers alike at
all levels are vaccinated. Even as pediatric vaccination is rolled out, however, and holdouts
in the teaching community are encouraged to get their shots, limited in-person classes have
started.

Health professionals have stressed that even for the fully vaccinated and boosted, strict
adherence to health safety protocols must be sustained in schools. Masking and physical
distancing must continue.

Hand hygiene plays a critical role in keeping people healthy; experts have stressed this even
before the COVID pandemic. As in-person classes gradually resume, school administrators
must ensure that there are sufficient facilities for hand washing, with soap and clean water.
Alcohol dispensers must also be provided throughout the school.
COVID is not the only public health threat; school premises must also be cleared of
possible breeding grounds for mosquitoes especially those that cause dengue. A scare over
the Dengvaxia vaccine, the world’s first against dengue, stopped that inoculation campaign.
As children return to school, with open ventilation encouraged in the time of COVID,
classrooms must have screens to keep out mosquitoes. Gardens or potted plants must be
checked for stagnant water where mosquitoes can breed.

Prolonged home quarantine has affected the physical and mental health of children, and
the return to in-person learning is always welcome. This, however, must be done as safely
as possible. The World Health Organization has repeatedly warned that the pandemic is far
from over, with coronavirus variants threatening the unvaccinated, the elderly and those
with comorbidities, and even the fully vaccinated. Protecting learners, educators and their
household members from illness and possible death must be a top priority in resuming
face-to-face classes.