Since we were informed that schools would be operating fully for all children, I have been unable to sleep. It is not because I am excited to get my normal life back, it is because I am terribly concerned.
Any parent who has looked into the new guidelines for the reopening of schools is probably feeling the same anxiety, anger, and helplessness, as children from the fourth grade and up will be required to keep their facial masks on during the entire school day.
Younger kids will be allowed to remove their masks in class and be required to wear them only during breaks and when leaving the classrooms.
Have any of those authors of the health and education ministry guidelines tried to spend hours with their masks on?
These are absurd guidelines that lead me to worry that officials either have no close acquaintance with children or worse, doing nothing more than protecting themselves should the decision to reopen schools turn out to be a mistake.
In order to understand what compliance with the guidelines would mean, I decided to try to apply them on myself.
I walked into a store that was already serving a number of people. The air conditioning system was turned on but the windows were open – as specified in the Health Ministry guideline.
After no more than 15 minutes I felt like I was suffocating and had to run out, remove my mask, and fill my lungs with air.
I had repeated this experiment using different types of facial masks but the results were the same: shortness of breath and the feeling of suffocation.
An average Israeli primary school classroom has more than 30 kids. Imagine them sitting together during the unusually severe heatwave that the country is experiencing this week, with the windows open to abide by government guidelines, for 45 full minutes, with their face masks on. Then going out for recess with their masks still on before returning to class for their next lesson.
How could they do that? How are kids who suffer from asthma going to feel? Or those children who have attention disorders? It makes no sense.
It is easy to assume that as kids return to school, the teaching staff would spend most of their day attempting to keep children from removing their masks instead of concentrating on teaching.
Educators and students could just accept that these directives make no sense and will be impossible to observe. The Israeli public at large has more or less given up on observing health guidelines since some
restrictions had been lifted. Beaches are already crowded with people escaping the heat despite directives to stay away.
When the stay-at-home order was in place, rules were clear and the public for the most part complied with them, but since the easing of restrictions, there has been nothing but chaos.
The decision to reopen businesses, shops and now schools was taken, it seems, in great haste.
Like parents who struggled to entertain their children when cooped up at home, prepared to promise anything for some peace and quiet, the government has apparently lost all semblance of control.
It has given in to the needs of the economy and the impatience of the public, opening up with no idea how its directives could be observed, just to get everyone off its back.
Schools that have opened in other countries have done so with more mitigation efforts. They have kept kids in capsule groups to prevent the rampant spread of virus. Some have managed to ensure a two-meter gap between kids in classrooms, cafeterias and schoolyards - and when that was not possible, placed partitions between the children.
In Denmark, schools assigned a separate desk for each child and are observing a regimen of hand washing every two hours. In Beijing, children and teachers alike have their temperature taken before even entering school grounds.
In Israel, the number of daily tests for coronavirus is on the decline - to our great detriment.
Perhaps instead of forcing children to wear face masks for hours on end, the government could find other more creative solutions to prevent the virus from spreading?
Perhaps they should increase testing in the education system to better monitor the risks.
I now have to explain to my 10-year-old than he must keep his face mask on for the duration of his school day. I must see his look of disbelief and assure him everything will be fine, when I am convinced it will be anything but.
First published: 08:53, 05.18.20