ROANOKE, Va. – Many schools across our region have been forced to close their doors due to COVID-19 outbreaks, but currently, no schools in the New River Health District are dealing with an outbreak, according to health district director, Dr. Noelle Bissell.
She says there are 47 cases of COVID-19 among school-aged children out of the twenty-thousand students in the New River Health District.
Dr. Bissell says continuing in-person learning is the best decision right now.
She says moving to virtual or hybrid learning brings in a new set of challenges, especially for underprivileged students.
“We also have to talk about abuse, substance, and overdoses. Those are all metrics that you have to be careful about. Food insecurity is another one. A lot of children rely on schools for their meals,” said Dr. Bissell.
She says it helps that school-aged children are still at very low risk of getting COVID-19 or getting extremely sick from the virus.