JAKARTA - The Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI) asked every school to be serious in paying attention to air ventilation as an effort to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 in children during face-to-face learning (PTM).
"In fact, we have learned a lot about ventilation problems. It is clear that natural ventilation is the most important thing," said the Head of the IDAI COVID-19 Task Force, Yogi Prawira in a live broadcast entitled "100% PTM What's the Impact?" which was followed online in Jakarta, reported by Antara, Thursday, January 6.
Responding to the health protocols in schools, Yogi said that to this day classes in Indonesian schools still have limited space capacity, but must accommodate 30 to 40 students.
This causes the health protocol, namely maintaining a distance that should reach one to two meters, cannot be carried out optimally. Moreover, for children who have an active nature or often forget to be disciplined in wearing masks, washing hands and keeping a distance (3M).
In addition, he also regrets that the existence of bad air ventilation and not being prepared in advance by the school can open the risk of transmission because air circulation cannot run properly due to the closed room or the use of air conditioning.
"Why hasn't it been prepared for a long time? All of that is now a question for schools whose buildings are all closed or full of air conditioning. That should have been done some kind of mitigation, what if they were allowed to enter," he asserted.
In fact, good air circulation can help reduce the risk of children contracting COVID-19. In fact, there are schools that neglect and do not install the exhaust requested by parents to this day. As a result, many schools prefer to use dead or standard windows.
Thus, he asked the school to respond to this as well as possible, in order to protect all children from the transmission of COVID-19, especially in the school environment.
"Unfortunately, when it comes to making policies, it's still not 'hatam' after these two years. I think it's time for parents, schools and all stakeholders to provide input (knowledge) regarding this matter," he said.
Chairman of the Indonesian Pediatrician Association (IDAI) Piprim Basarah Yanuarso asked parents to be more active in monitoring every child's activities, including the health protocols implemented at school. As appropriate, parents can file the complaint through the PTM-related complaint number provided by the government, namely through the number 085775368500.
Piprim also agrees that schools must be serious in paying attention to air ventilation so that good circulation occurs in closed spaces. In addition, it is better if the school also participates in conducting surveillance, so that it can be seen whether there is transmission. Of course, by not hiding a child who has a cough or cold.
On that occasion, he emphasized that his party would not refuse if PTM was carried out according to government policy. However, he suggested that PTM be carried out under the right conditions and continue to be disciplined in health protocols because children are more important than anything else.
"We have to be active parents, this must be an intake for the school, even the government. IDAI is not anti-PTM, but must be under the right conditions," he said.
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