Should Students Return To The Classroom?

WAAY 31's Najahe Sherman interviewed Dr. Ali Hassoun about whether or not students should return to the classroom.

In limestone county, max cohen, waay-31 news.

>> the district tells us it is expecting lots of ups and downs this year.

Currently its focus is on the first 30 days and says it wants to get to labor day before making any furkt plans.

As we mentioned many parents across north alabama are rightfully concerned about send ing their children back to the classroom.

We are joined now by dr. hewn ali hassoun, infectious disease specialist at huntsville hospital to discuss the issue.

Thank you for joining us tonight >> dr. hassoun: thank you.

>> najahe sherman: dr. hassoun, we just heard superintendents across north alabama are expecting positive cases in their schools.

If that's the case, should students be heading back to the classroom?

>> dr. hassoun: yeah, i must say , i would say no, i disagree with them of saying it's going to be a reality where we're going to see cases.

Because my main worry with this is as we see cases, it's not going to be just one and it will be limited.

It's going to be where you'll see multiple exposures and then widespread infectious more.

So there's definitely much more concerning.

I know you can try and put precautions, try to apply prevention method, but i think a lot of people, i've seen it in other schools in other states where already there's been positive cases, even though they just started recently.

So i would have major, major concern.

We should not accept even one case happening in the school as a reality.

We're going to need to work better than that, meaning we're going to need to cut down on the widespread infection, then yes, sure, there is one here, one there where we can prevented widespread infection, that's a different story.

>> najahe sherman: how do you think schools should handle those cases?

>> dr. hassoun: yeah, so if there is any case that happened in the school and, you know, one main issue i can bring always, i'm not sure what the school planning in the way of testing because a lot of people, to prevent widespread infection, you need to do testing and you need to do it on regular basis.

But if one case happened and you're going to be able to know how many got exposed to that kid between adults and kids, these ones going to need to be quarantined.

But i don't know how they're going to track this and trace it to know how many exposure happened because the kids are going to play around.

They're going to do a lot of other things, whether touching around, you know, contamination around, so it will be really tough on the teachers and the principals to trace and track all that so you can quarantine those at risk.

>> najahe sherman: we know that younger children are at a lower risk than older adults but is sending children back to the classroom putting children's lives in danger?

>> dr. hassoun: i think it would be because even though they at lower risk of having a severe infection, we still have seen and been reported all over the united states and the world, there are kids who get severely ill with what we call significant immune phenomenons and that can affect their heart, their kidneys, their brain.

So yes, they might have less of a severity, but there are cases report reported.

And again, we cannot accept one death.

We cannot accept severe cases with significant aftereffect because we're seeing it now.

Some of them who recover, they still have problems with their lung or kidneys or their heart.

So it is concerning about that.

>> najahe sherman: what about high school sports?

School districts in madison county are starting the school year remotely but still plan to play sports.

Should seasons will delayed?

Many.

>> dr. hassoun: yeah, so i think if we really want to play sport, we're going to need to screen these kids on regular basis, almost every week or every few days,which we know we don't have because one case happened in the team is going to transmit it to the other, whether in the same team or whoever they play with.

We cannot afford doing all this because testing is not readily available for everyone.

In addition, even if you test, you're going to need to wait several days to know the result.

So that affect all the logistic of how you deal with this, how you manage this.

It is really, i mean, for me, i hope there's not going to be any cases, but at the same time, i hope everybody who's planning to do any of this going to need to understand the seriousness of this because some people are going to get admitted to the hospital and some will have severe infection and some will die.

>> najahe sherman: dr. hassoun, yesterday huntsville hospital ceo david spiller said the high number of coronavirus inpatients is taking resources from other non-coronavirus patients.

How concerning is this?

>> dr. hassoun: it is a major concern.

I can tell you as staff that i see them every day in the hospital.

How much work they go through as a health care professional, nurses.

All other resources, respiratory therapist, physical therapist, all of them is under stress and pressure.

At the same time, the resources that we usually use on ordinary basis for non-covid patient, there's going to be a lot of strain on it and possibly with time there's going to be shortages as well.

Beds is getting where we need to wait for some of these patients in the emergency room fr.

A long time.

So the cure -- care and management of these patient, it's not going to be definitely where we want to do the best, we want it as fast as possible.

This all as a logistic will be affected by having that many patient in the hospital.

>> najahe sherman: we learned about 150 employees in the hospital system are home from work due to the virus and some nurses are now -- are working extra to fill that gap.

You're a doctor at the hospital.

How stressful is this and what are you hearing from the nurses?

>> dr. hassoun: and you know, again, it's not just the nurses.

Definitely the nurses on the front line but respiratory therapist, physical therapist, doctors.

All are under a lot of stress and pressure.

We want to help every patient.

We want to take care of every patient.

By as we -- but as we get staff absent due to illness or their family sick, you know, all of us have families imh nurses have families.

Think they need to take care of them.

This has been ongoing for five, six months.

And there is a lot of, you know, stress on these nurses affected.

And i think if we as a community not going do lep the health care health care community as a whole health care system or everybody else in the -- you know, in the community were looking for reducing cases, there's going to be more shortage, there's going to be affect on how we care for patient.

It's going to be a lot of problems in the hospital.

>> najahe sherman: we understand that nobody truly knows the next step in this difficult journey but everyone is hoping for the best.

And that includes a vaccine.

So where do we stand on the search fora vaccine?

>> dr. hassoun: yeah, i mean, at the moment it look like there is a possibility we're going to have vaccine available by the end of the year, if we really get all these studies wrapped up by october, november, where we'll see they are beneficial.

So there is some hope by the end of the year.

But probably to make it widely available for everyone, it's probably going to be, you know, february or march next year.

>> najahe sherman: at this point we are approaching a month into the statewide mask ordinance.

Is it working?

>> dr. hassoun: yeah, you know, i hope.

There is -- you know, always hope the masking would do something and i think, you know, we probably seen reduction in some.

But i still think, and we've said it multiple time, masking by itself is not enough.

Physical distancing, all other prevention way of, you know, staying at home if you are sick, quarantine yourself, these are all altogether help reduce.

Masking alone might help some but we need the whole package to do something and cut down on the cases.

>> najahe sherman: so where do we go from here, dr. hassoun?

>> dr. hassoun: you know, we say it every week and we say it to all our isht pa -- patient, we plead to our community to help us out.

You know, it's been almost six months.

We continue to see significant number of patient who's really sick die or have significant effect from these infections.

The community can help us out in reduction of these cases.

Please do not gather in big gathering, avoid the crowd, avoid close spaces, avoid close contact, wear these mask.

You know, remember to help each other.

If we do that, hopefully we're going to get through this.

But we're going to need the help of the community.

>> najahe sherman: any final message to the community tonight >> dr. hassoun: you know, we always hope we're going to look for future where we have reduction in cases.

We hopefully, we want to buy some time for us at the moment.

In the way we have prevention method that work, by the time where we can get treatment and vaccination.

So there is always hope, but we need to be realistic.

We cannot keep making decisions ourself.

We need to follow public health expert, infectious disease expert of what they're telling us how to do things.

>> najahe sherman: dr. ali hassoun, infectious disease specialist at huntsville hospital, thank you so much for your