As we embark on the Fall 2021 semester, I cannot help but feel like I’ve seen this episode of “When the pandemic strikes” before.
With cases surging and Gov. Greg Abbott’s incompetency on the mask front, the climate seems awfully familiar.
Around this time last year, the Rio Grande Valley was reporting about 150 to 200 cases per day. One year later, we can see that this trend is back with a vengeance.
As of last Thursday, Cameron County reported 47,461 cases, an increase of more than 5,000 since June 28.
The county also reported 1,742 county residents died of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
Hidalgo County also reported an additional 520 cases as of last Thursday, with 116 of those cases being children between the ages of zero to 11, and 89 cases of kids between the ages of 12 to 19. The county also reported eight additional deaths, raising its death toll to 3,023.
This time around, we are no longer being dealt the same strain of COVID-19 that we battled last year.
According to Cameron County Public Health Authority Dr. James Castillo, the delta variant accounts for over 90% of the county’s COVID cases and, unlike previous strains, delta does not spare children.
In case you missed that, I wrote that delta does not spare children, meaning that, within the next couple weeks, not only will we continue to see adults die from this virus but the number of babies who fall victim will also begin to increase drastically.
A month ago, CNN reported that the number of children dying in Indonesia from COVID-19 has quadrupled in recent weeks, according to the country’s pediatrics society.
In an interview broadcast Aug. 12 on the “PBS News Hour,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told William Brangham of PBS, “We were dealing with a different virus then. Now you have a virus that does a big and better job of infecting anybody much more efficiently than the previous virus, including children. So, relatively speaking, you are seeing more children getting infected.”
“And just on numbers alone, when more children will get infected, a proportion of them, a small proportion, albeit, are going to wind up with serious disease, getting hospitalized,” Fauci said. “And that’s one of the reasons why, maybe the overwhelming reason, why you’re seeing children, in this particular context of delta, being in the hospital.”
Time and time again, press conference after press conference, I have listened as health authorities plead to parents and the public to protect our most vulnerable.
Our most vulnerable being the babies in our communities, the toddlers and all those who are not old enough to be vaccinated.
They have no line of defense against this variant and, now more than ever, we need to protect them.
Gone are the days when mothers took their babies to the grocery stores without a mask, but wore one themselves. I have seen this in many instances at local grocery stores and cannot help but become infuriated at the negligence each time.
This variant will not be as forgiving as the last. So, I ask that parents, teachers and anyone around children, please protect our most vulnerable before it is too late.
With this said, I call on all school districts in Texas to demonstrate the unwavering dedication to children that La Joya, Edinburg, Hidalgo, Brownsville, Crowley, Edcouch-Elsa, Lasara and Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school districts demonstrated on Aug. 13 when they filed a temporary restraining order against Abbott, keeping them from enforcing portions of Executive Order GA 38 regarding face coverings.
I commend these districts for proving that they are not sitting ducks and that their hands do not have to be tied to the illogical ideas of one man, despite his status.
With all the resources to educate online, I do not understand the logic behind exposing these kids in an in-person setting. It is not a matter of if these kids will fall, but when.
I know we all see what is happening at other districts that have already started school and how quickly this is spreading to our babies.
It is one thing to lose adults, who are conscious of the decisions they make, to this virus, but it is a completely different thing to lose innocent children.
As an upcoming clinical teacher this semester, I am not emotionally strong enough to watch as students begin to fall to this virus. I ask that anyone who knows somebody in the education system right now, ensure that your loved one is taking all the steps necessary to protect themselves and those around them.
The current state of in-person education is the equivalent of sending lambs to the slaughter.
We know these kids are defenseless, so what do we expect to happen? After this first week alone, I can guarantee that there will be many empty desks in schools. When this happens, I do not want to hear the condolences of elected officials who had the power to stop this from the beginning. They will not get to play the hero this time around when things get bad.
We should know better by now, so why can we not simply do better for the youths? The outcome of the next few weeks will be unforgivable, in my opinion, and it doesn’t take a psychic to read the writing on the wall.
It is hard to explain to a 6-year-old that rubbing their eyes or putting their hands in their mouth could literally mean the difference between life and death, but for many parents, this is their reality.
To be completely transparent, I am still afraid of what is happening and I’m not sure that I have completely wrapped my head around it all yet.
Most of us have returned to work and in-person activities over the last few months to the infamous “return to normalcy,” but just because we’re in the eye of the hurricane doesn’t mean it’s over.
Now more than ever we cannot let our guard down, with breakthrough infections and hospitalization rates quickly rising, this is looking all too familiar.
They say déjà vu brings you an intuitive feeling of familiarity and is accredited to a neurological anomaly that can make you feel like you’ve lived through a scene before, whether it be a resemblance to the past or a similar scene in a dream.
I pray that this feeling of déjà vu will be free from the scenes of the past and that it will never resemble that of my nightmares.
