ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - As the White House and Missouri Governor Mike Parson call for schools to open in the fall, the head of the local pandemic task force is sounding a much more cautious tone. "Right now, with the cases going up as they are" says Dr. Alex Garza, "I think it would be challenging for anybody to say that kids should be going back to school today."
Garza says based on what we've seen with coronavirus cases, he's afraid the current surge in cases will still be going when schools would start opening. "If you think about shelter-in-place, it took a good two weeks to a month to see the benefits from that. If we're peaking at cases now, which I'm not sure if we're at the peak, then that's going to continue on for the next two weeks to a month which puts us squarely into the beginning of schools," he says.
Garza tells Total Information AM Sunday, "Given the current environment, I think we really need to think hard on whether we're going to be able to mitigate the risk to allow children to come back to school safely, and the children and the staff as well."
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Garza says one question that has to be answered, is how cases in schools will be dealt with. "At least I haven't seen any great plans on how we're going to deal with it. I'm not sure there really is a great plan."