JAKARTA - Thousands of schools in the United States, including in several major cities, have postponed their scheduled return to classrooms this week, following the holidays or switching to distance learning as the Omicron variant of the coronavirus pushed up record levels of COVID-19.
In New Jersey, which has seen some of the highest case rates of any state in recent weeks, most urban districts have implemented virtual classes to start the new year, including Newark, which has nearly 38,000 students.
The Milwaukee public school system announced on Sunday that more than 70,000 of its students would turn to virtual learning on Tuesday, due to an increase in COVID infections among staff members. Cleveland schools have also become secluded, while Detroit canceled classes through Wednesday.
School disruptions, which have left many parents scrambling to find child care, have added to widespread chaos in the first few days of 2022. The number of new COVID-19 cases has doubled in the past seven days to an average of 418,000. a day, according to a Reuters tally.
The Omicron variant appears to be much more infectious than previous iterations, but data suggests it may be less virulent than Delta, which flooded hospitals last year.
Over the past week, the number of hospitalized COVID patients rose 40 percent and is now at 72 percent from the previous peak seen in January 2021, according to a Reuters tally. Deaths from COVID-19 in the US fluctuated due to delays in reporting over the holidays, but remained steady with an average of 1,300 lives lost each day.
However, the sheer number of cases has alarmed health officials with hospital systems in many states under stress. Maryland, Ohio, Delaware, and Washington, DC, are all at or near record COVID-19 hospitalization rates.
Some school systems use testing to prevent further delays. In Washington, DC, all public school staff and 51,000 students must upload negative test results to the district's website before coming to class on Wednesday. Parents can take the rapid test at their school or use their own test.
A similar effort is underway in California, which has pledged to provide free home test kits to all 6 million K-12 public school students.
"There's a lot of COVID out there. It's going to be a bumpy start," said Michelle Smith McDonald, director of communications and public affairs for the Alameda City Office of Education.
The full impact of the Omicron wave on the country's school districts may not be clear until next week. Parents and administrators are struggling to implement change guidelines and figure out how many older teen staff and students need to be considered fully vaccinated.
Separately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday authorized the use of the third dose of Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines for children ages 12 to 15, and narrowed the time for all booster injections a month to five months after the main dose. .
Asked if schools would open in his state and if that would cause problems, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson told Reuters, "The answer to both is yes."
"We have to go back to school, but at the same time we recognize that it will be a challenge, and we are likely to see cases in schools increase," he said.
In contrast to the rest of the county, New York City schools, the nation's largest district, reopened as planned on Monday but with more testing for its nearly 1 million students. Instead of quarantining the entire class if one person tests positive, all students in the class will be given a quick home test to use over the next seven days.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who took office over the weekend, visited an elementary school in the Bronx on Monday and told reporters the city's schools would remain open.
"We want to be very clear, the safest place for our children is in the school building," he said.
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