By Mataeliga Pio Sioa
Any parent will worry about children returning to classroom learning with the COVID 19 virus still doing the rounds.
In terms of their education, teachers should know in the next few weeks of assessments where they are at.
After more than 2 months of lockdowns, and being forced to learn from home, their schooling are affected in many ways by the disruptions.
Parents are obviously anxious about health securities for the children. The fears are the risks of catching the virus going back to school.
These are children and we all know what that means especially for the unsuspecting younger ones at the primary and pre-school age groups.
About the only medical assurances to help calm parental nerves is knowing the children have been vaccinated.
Beyond that certainty is a lot of uncertainties.
Kids will be kids and if ‘high-5’ hand slaps is a popular ritual with them, it will take some time to wean them out of the habit.
It is no different from getting adults to replace open handshakes with ‘fist pumps’.
These are social lifestyle re-adjustments necessary to avoid passing the virus along through body contacts.
, Long-standing social habits do not change overnight.
Regular updated health analysis of the pandemic virus is repeatedly showing that the older folks are the ones most seriously vulnerable.
Of the 25 people to die so far from COVID 19 related health complications, the youngest was in his 30s.
The majority were between the 50 to 70 year old age group.
Compare the death rate to more than 12,000 people who have already contracted the virus and eventually recovered – it does carry a calming effect.
If only 25 people have died out of those confirmed cases of virus carriers then it is truly worth noting.
Vaccinations are done already for over 80 per cent of each selected age groups of young people.
If PM Fiame believes vaccination is the best defence against the pandemic lets go with that.
The COVID virus is not going away. After 2 years of confinement under health security measures, we know that.
The pressure to move on is at the point now where it is too much to be ignored anymore.
But it is not as if we are jumping blindly into running free again without any regard for the pandemic health risks.
We have been trying for a while now to adjust to a new lifestyle norm to better suit our health security needs.
Granted our response is nowhere near 100% but we know what we have to do. We will get there with our ‘fist pumps’ among other lifestyle changes we have to make to stay healthy.
Unfortunately, our national economy has taken a noticeable dip, especially within the tourism industry, by locking ourselves away for our own health protection.
Travel borders are being lifted by this coming August and we are now starting to see flickering of economic revival at the end of this dark, foreboding COVID 19 tunnel.
Before we bolt off to dance in the bright hopes of recovery lets give credit first to where credit is due.
When our local health advisers at the Ministry of Health called to shut our travel borders down, the Government at the time became caught up in a difficult juggle.
Shutting the borders down throws the tourism industry under the bus. Keeping the border open risks throwing lives under 6 foot holes.
Lives mattered the most and the travel borders were brought down.
The Ministry of Health did not sit idle either, rather they went all out to encourage and try to normalize a new healthy lifestyle for the people.
What better way to respond to the threat of infectious disease like this COVID pandemic, than by living healthy?
Improvements in our pandemic health awareness today are a far cry from our unprepared state two years ago.
Full credit must go to our health workers and other support services for their role into leading the way.
The Government leadership at the time deserves the larger credit.
Hard decisions had to be made and it was their courage, steel resolve and vision to give the go ahead, that has brought us safely to where we are now.
The re-opening of our borders and the back-to school return for our children is only possible after all that hard work we have been through.
But we are not out of trouble yet with this pandemic. With the COVID 19 virus continuing to mutate we still have to remain on high health alert.
We can never tell what comes next.
Talk of a new global health threat is starting to circulate already.
Monkeybox.