Teaching Flu

"Can you please give me your mask for some time, I forgot to bring mine and the teacher would scold me since I'm coughing", or "Let us exchange our masks, Green is my favourite colour and you are wearing a green one but my mom has given me a blue mask", these are the sorts of conversations going on in my 9 year old daughters class. I don't think things would be too different in other schools...

Giving blanket instructions to children and their parents about the need of wearing face masks is not enough. The children and the parents need to be educated about this disease and its more familiar 'analogues' - seasonal cold and flu. But the teachers are also parents- perhaps it would be best to start with them.

Every school should organize a seminar or workshop for teachers to give them the right knowledge instead of half baked 'truth' or remedies of unknown significance which are abundant in the media. The teachers can thus impart proper knowledge to pupils and help prevent outbreaks in schools and other closed communities.

It is high time that the government came up with specific guidelines and a structured approach to this. Medical care offcourse is important, and doctors if given the adequate means are efficient enough to take care of the patients, But prevention is more important an aspect today. As time has already proven, effective communication, screening and isolation are the best measures and have drastically decreased the casualities from this disease as compared to earlier epidemics.