Covid-19 Certainty, Agility, Flexibility and Dr. Taryn Gray

Gershom Aitchison, host · [01:51]I think what's important to remember is that our view on what's happening for term two is 100% clear. We are going to be schooling from home, and if we do need on occasion to bring a group in for pracs or something like that, those arrangements will be made well in advance and in line with safety, with the alert levels, et cetera. Term three at the moment is quite murky. There's a 25 to 30 percent clarity on what's going to happen, and the points that are very clear to us are that if we continue in the same line that we are moving at the moment and progression in the virus, that the Matrix will be on campus to write their prelims in September, and they will be on campus in October, November to write their finals. If we do need to bring the metrics in for practicals, we will be doing that as well. What is also very clear is that the OHS, the Occupational Health and Safety, as well as the personal protection equipment, is very, very important, and one of those elements is social distancing. And like a lot of other small private schools, we are not in a position where we can space our children at a meter and a half in each classroom. So that space is going to be influencing that decision as well. Another thing that is also very clear for us on a positive light is that our delivery of content curriculum, our teaching, having not missed a single day or hour of teaching to this point, as well as our assessment and the effectiveness validity is happening well, and there's no rush for us to be going back to school, where we have to compromise possibly the safety of our teachers, our, our children and our families. And I think Stepping back and allowing some of the clarity to be made clear through other people's actions and decisions is a good thing right now, because it means being behind the curve on this sense allows us to make the decisions knowing what the outcomes are going to be.

Gavin, intro voice or played clip · [10:19]A new word that we seem to be hearing a lot of that maybe not everybody understands the meaning of is this comorbidities, particularly in a school environment. What, what does that mean and what should we be doing with that?

Dr. Taryn Gray, guest · [10:28]So comorbidities are basically underlying medical conditions that you're living with. the most common comorbidities in our society are in adults are probably hypertension or high blood pressure, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, asthma. People may have a range of immunological comorbidities like HIV, have underlying cancer, which they're receiving immunosuppressive therapy. So com-comorbidities are essentially the, the diseases we're living with.

Gavin, intro voice or played clip · [11:00]And they're a threat when they're treated or untreated, or does it not make a difference?

Dr. Taryn Gray, guest · [11:05]Okay, so the, the biggest comorbidities from what we understand at the moment are diabetes, obesity, uncontrolled asthma, High potential high blood pressure, an advanced age, and a lot of those pertain more to adult patients, but we are seeing more severe disease in children with severe uncontrolled asthma, with immune compromise, severe untreated cardiac problems, and with obesity.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [11:38]Sorry, Taryn, what is uncontrolled asthma? What does that mean?

Dr. Taryn Gray, guest · [11:41]So As a pulmonologist, I treat a range of children with asthma. Some children have got very mild asthma just with exercise-induced symptoms when they play sports, and on the other end of the spectrum, I've got children with asthma that land up in ICU every winter on a ventilator. we are certainly more concerned about the severe end of the spectrum, children that have had previous ICU admissions for their asthma, children that have, are requiring multiple medications to control their asthma, children who have had any life-threatening asthma, children who have your general day-to-day asthma that are compliant with their medication, taking their pumps, and are controlling well on their pumps, we're not considering high risk at this stage.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [12:24]So, Taryn, as a school, what do you recommend that we do? obviously, we are sorting out all our PPE and the cleaning of the school and our screening processes, those are all being handled, but what can parents do to really help their kids be healthy and strong for coming back to school?

Dr. Taryn Gray, guest · [12:41]One of the few things that we are strongly recommending is that, where possible, children be vaccinated for influenza. The influenza season hasn't fully unraveled yet in South Africa. It's, the case will start to pick up in about June, July. Because everyone's been at home, we're not seeing many cases yet. We have seen a couple. Looking at the Northern Hemisphere, the influenza season has particularly affected children in this past winter season, and there've been significant number of pediatric deaths related to influenza. In fact, many more pediatric deaths related to influenza than to coronavirus. We do strongly recommend the influenza vaccine, particularly if you have other conditions like asthma or lung, lung diseases or heart diseases. it is, it has been in short supply. I'm not sure what the current status is, but if you can get your hands on a flu vaccine, I would recommend taking it.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [13:34]That's really important. Thank you. When it comes to the crunch, and without putting your neck on the chopping block here, what do we actually In terms of timeframes, in your opinion?

Dr. Taryn Gray, guest · [13:44]I think you'd have to ask that question to the epidemiologist. Looking at the world around us, it seems that, that once countries have hit their real peak, it seems to have taken about eight weeks to really surge and, and start subsiding. I think there's a lot of things that interplay in South Africa that we, we don't know how it's going to affect the progress of things, but, we've had our hard lockdown early, and the idea of that has been to delay the peak. So we may have a much slower, longer surge of this. I think we, we're all apprehensive about what lies before us. We want to get it over with, but I don't know if it's going to be over quickly. And it is likely that the virus will be around for several years before we actually have a reliable vaccine available in South Africa. So as Mr. Ramaphosa has alluded to, it's something we're going to have to learn to live with. I, I'm sure there will be a big initial surge at some stage, and I think we'll all focus on trying to get through that at the moment, and the rest will take care of itself as we go along.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [14:46]As a school, how should we be approaching sick children? When they do come back, how should we really be approaching that? What's the safest and most cautious approach that we can take?

Dr. Taryn Gray, guest · [14:55]So sick children need to remain at home, both for their own health and for the health of those around them. When you're sick, if you come to school when you're sick, apart from not giving yourself a chance to get better, your immune system is suppressed to some degree, and you're not actually able to deal with additional infections you may pick up from the people around you. So it's really important to stay at home when you're sick, whether it's from influenza or coronavirus or any other virus that's around, that you're suffering from at, at that time. The sick children should remain at home until they're properly better. The parents in ICD guidelines on sick people with coronavirus is that they need to remain home for fourteen days from the time that they're tested for their illness. not from the time they receive the result, because there's a big lag in results at the moment. So from the, the time that you are unwell enough to go for a test, and that comes with the provider that you're completely well at that fourteen days. If you've still got any lingering symptoms, you should obviously stay at home longer.

Jacqueline Aitchison, host · [15:55]So it really is a, a rather safe than sorry approach.

Dr. Taryn Gray, guest · [15:59]Yes. And I think if anything, this pandemic's going to teach people to have a bit of respect for viral illnesses. We all know that we've gone to, to work and sent our children to school with fevers, with flu, with, with snotty noses, with coughs, and we should really be thinking about people around us and keeping our children at home when they're sick.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [16:19]Taryn, you're also a mom. I'm asking you to take off the doctor hat and put on the mom hat right now. is there anything on your mind as a parent and any advice parent to parent that you might be able to give just to alleviate some of those fears that are most burning in, in parents' minds at the moment?

Dr. Taryn Gray, guest · [16:34]Yeah, so, so I think as a parent, we're all trying to weigh up the risk and the benefit of sending our children to school. Some of us are more fortunate than others in that we've got access to online teaching, to internet, to books and other resources, to, to people to help us care for our children while we have to work. but there's many people out there that aren't in a position, and we really do need to get our children back to school in South Africa. School's often a safer place for children than home is. as a parent, I'm, it's heartbreaking to see my children completely isolated from their peers and their teachers and everyone else that enriches their lives so much, and I'm glad I've got a safe place to keep them while this passes, but I do want them to get back to school. fortunately, my children are healthy and they're young, and I know that they're at the low risk end of the spectrum, so I'm not fearful of sending my children back to school at this stage. In the same breath, I have patients and I have friends with children with severe underlying illnesses that, of course, are, much more cautious about sending their children. And I think if you're the parent of a child with a significant underlying disease or, congenital problem that your child has been born with, that needs to be considered on an individual basis, and you need to take guidance from your pediatrician or your specialist pediatrician that's looking after your child in weighing up the, the risks and benefit of sending your particular child to school.

Gershom Aitchison, host · [20:27]Gavin, the timetable for the, the second half of this year, we have a great opportunity to try something new. And as I've mentioned in a previous podcast, one of the big focuses for us is going to be on exercise. I don't believe that sitting behind a computer for six or seven hours straight is, is entirely healthy. And I think we underestimate how many steps we get in walking between classes and just doing our daily chores and walking around at school. And we did a survey with the students asking if they wanted longer breaks, starting later, ending later, et cetera. And I think the timetable reflects a little bit of something for everybody. And one of the things that is important and why this is, The timetable change happens in the middle of the year. It's just to note that our semester subjects, which are geography, history, physics, life science for the grade fours to grade nines, requires us to change the timetable because some of those subjects have now been finished for the year and we're going to engage in the other subjects. So it's a, it's a natural time for that change to happen. And what we've done is we'll see that the grade fours to sixes might end early on a couple of days at, at one o'clock, quarter past one. I've extended the second break to half an hour because the feedback from the parents and the students is that when they're at school and it's lunchtime, it's easy to open a, a lunchton of pre-made food and, and, and scoff it down very quickly. But when they're at home, they need to get up and go to the kitchen and make their food, which is a great life skill as well. So they need a little bit more time for that. And extending the day by 15 minutes just allows for a little bit of luxury to be able to do that. And I think it's healthier to eat that food that you've prepared yourself nice and fresh. On a Friday, we will be starting with assembly at eight o'clock. And from half past seven till eight o'clock, everybody is going to be exercising, keeping log of that. On a, a Monday and a Wednesday, the grade nines will be starting classes at 8:30 from 7:30 until 8:30. They've got an hour of PE where they can go and walk with their families or jog or run or do something like that and keep a log. And on a Tuesday and a Thursday, the grade fours to eights will have the same opportunity between 7:30 and 8:30 to go and exercise as a family, walk, get some cardio in. The grade tens to twelves, it's very difficult because their timetable doesn't really allow a lot of flexibility and movement, but they do all have three to four hours of free periods during the week, and they must use that time to exercise, to walk, and they can plan their schedule around that to walk as a family if they want to or go jogging or cycling in that, in those free hours that they do have. I think that we're also focusing on taking out some of the As we call the soft skills subjects, although they're very important, Jax used them for typing, touch typing, and Udemy courses, last term. Jax, how many hours did we end up putting in place with all the Udemy courses?