Benchmarks to return to in-person schooling have now been released by the Arizona Department of Health Services.
While no Arizona county currently meets the guidelines to reopen, there could be ripple effects with how the virus could spread when they do.
“We’re kind of in uncharted territory on how we go about doing this,” Dr. Ross Goldberg, President of the Arizona Medical Association said.
Goldberg is also the District Medical Group Vice-Chair of Surgery at Valleywise Health.
He said schools returning to in-person classes will require a close eye.
“Here you have an opportunity, it’s a large group of people coming together in some form,” Goldberg said. “You have to be really mindful when positive cases occur.”
Goldberg points back to Memorial Day when crowds gathered across Arizona and the virus spread. He said the time delay of COVID-19 means it takes weeks to see the effects, so if something happens, schools have to react quickly.
“If something crops up we have to be willing to shut something down to isolate it,” Goldberg said. “It’s just, again, how extensive you have to be? It depends on who’s exposed, what the exposure was, and what’s going on.”
Adding it’s going to be up to the entire community to continue best practices to keep spread down and help hospitals maintain good capacity.
“It’s not just the kids, it’s the adults too, we all have a role to play,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg said the data will need to be monitored closely.
“We can’t let up we have to learn from what happened before. That whatever we do, however, we start loosening things up, we have to do it very carefully and mindfully. If we don’t we’ll be right back to where we were last month,” Goldberg said.