Local pediatricians weigh in on new CDC school guidelines
SAN ANTONIO Dr. Leah Jacobson, a San Antonio pediatrician, said the parents shes spoken with are 50-50 about eventually sending their children back to school. As the chair of the Pediatric School Reopening Committee of the Bexar County Medical Society COVID-19 Task Force, Jacobson said theyre having to weigh education versus health. The latest guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are based on what the agency said is the best available data. New school safety tool to be added to San Antonios COVID-19 dashboard for parentsSvatek said theyre developing metrics to help school districts decide how to proceed. And how many cases would it take for a classroom to close off for 14 days or even a school to be closed or even the school district? Svatek said.
Smoking suspected of accelerating COVID-19 spread
SAN ANTONIO โ If there is one thing you can do to prevent complications from COVID-19, it would be to stay away from smoking, doctors say. There is research currently underway to find out whether smokers with asymptomatic COVID-19 are secret super-spreaders of the virus. โWeโre finding in multi-family housing units that seven in 10 African-American children are exposed to secondhand smoke, as well as a prominent nearly a quarter of Latino community are exposed to that secondhand smoke,โ Svatek said. There is more inequity hidden in such living conditions Svatek said, with an estimated 15,269 housing units in San Antonio considered to be overcrowded. And it is not just in housing units that the high density and smoking are showing a spike in cases.