Outspoken children’s advocate Shelly Ross is in full agreement with American epidemiologist Dr Paul Alexander that children in Barbados should return to school with no restrictions.
Dr Alexander, a former COVID pandemic evidence-synthesis advisor to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) had suggested that the science shows that children do not transmit the coronavirus and are at such low risk that they should be allowed to attend in-person school with normal routine contact.
Dr Alexander shared his views on Thursday during a webinar entitled, Considering Current Global Pandemic Threats, are COVID-19 Vaccines Necessary for Children and the Wider Barbadian Population? The webinar was hosted by The Spiritually Aware Group in conjunction with Rapha Revival Ministries in Trinidad and The House of Freedom Ministries Barbados.
“I agree with him. I agree that there is not any great danger for children transmitting the disease at any alarming level. But the most important thing is that whether or not they go to school, they are still being exposed at home because they are still mixing with people who are out there. They are in the neighbourhood mixing with other children, they are going to malls, they are all over the place as well.
“I don’t see that the virus right now is that critical as it was when it started. I am no doctor or no scientist so I don’t want anybody to think that I know what I am talking about, but I don’t really think it is that critical from what I am seeing and what I have experienced myself with friends and family,” she said.
Ross said local statistics provided by the Ministry of Health are showing that though face-to-face-classes have been suspended for the past two years in an attempt to contain the spread of the virus, children are still coming down with it. She said she has also paid attention to reports that the majority of children are not getting critically ill when they do test positive for COVID-19.
However, Ross said she, like many other concerned citizens, is worried that children are being disadvantaged through what she has described as being “housed-up”.
“And now we have a mental health issue. We have a domestic violence issue. We have a child abuse issue. And we have the issue where children are falling too far behind in their academic studies because a lot of teachers are not teaching in online schools. There are many children who I can call at 1 o’clock and 2 o’clock and classes are finished.
“A lot of children are going to be better off than some because in my family alone, I have been speaking to my family members with children and they have got them in lessons with some of the best teachers that we could find. And that is the case for people who can do that.
“But the children whose parents can’t do that are going to be the ones suffering and they need to be in school. I don’t see any reason why these children are at home; they should have been back at school already. Almost every other Caribbean island, the children are at school,” Ross said.
(AH)
