Great news, parents! Last week, the Oklahoma State Department of Health okayed a new plan to allow schools to implement an in-school quarantine for COVID-exposed students. While Oklahoma medical professionals are calling out the new quarantine plan for its alleged failure to follow CDC guidelines, we don’t think it’s going to be that bad. In fact, here are 7 reasons why in-school quarantining is a great idea!
It’s an introduction to the real world
If kids are expected to continue to pay attention to a math lesson while battling COVID-19 symptoms, they’ll be more than ready to count back change during a fever dream when their manager refuses to take them off the schedule in their future service industry job.
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There’s always an exposed teacher to cover the classroom
According to the Tulsa World, students who have been exposed to COVID-19 will be kept away from other students and teachers who have not been exposed. Thank goodness there always seems to be at least one exposed teacher to man the quarantine classroom!
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It’s just like the movie!
If you’ve been around any child under the age of 10 since Frozen was released in 2013, you know that kids love to play “make-believe” and enact their favorite movies. In-school quarantine will be just like that! Except instead of playing Princess Anna or Kristoff, the kids can pretend-play to be scientists in the 1982 classic “The Thing,” slowly watching their colleagues become infected by an invisible parasite and anxiously awaiting for themselves to fall victim next.
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They’re all exposed, anyway
Since all the students in quarantine are exposed anyway, it shouldn’t be an issue that they all quarantine together… even though early research is suggesting that COVID-19 symptom severity appears to increase with the more virus droplets you inhale.
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It seems to affect kids less severely
Typically, COVID-19 seems to affect children less severely than it does adults. Thank goodness kids who are exposed to the virus only live with other kids.
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Kids are great at social distancing
If you’ve ever worked in a school setting, you know that kids are great at respecting boundaries set by staff and administration. Kindergarteners always patiently wait on the other side of the classroom for their turn with a toy. Middle schoolers settle their disputes with their words, not their fists. And high school kids are very chaste, despite their hormones.
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Some schools have nurses
If kids are going to stay in school for their quarantine period, it’s probably a good idea there’s some sort of medical supervision. Lucky for our students, there’s almost 1 nurse for every 6 schools in Oklahoma!
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If you’ve never worked a 12-hour shift while sick, are you even an American? Follow Hayley on twitter @squirrellygeek and become a contributing member of TLO here.
