A lawmaker said healthcare frontliners should be deployed on school campuses for the opening of face-to-face classes this year.
BHW Party-list Representative Angelica Co said the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) response at this time should have more emphasis on all the schools and campus communities because classes are resuming with face-to-face contact.
Co said the Department of Health and local government units should deploy barangay health workers to help school principals protect students and teachers from the “many health risks out there”.
“Schools and barangays will have to work together more now.”
“Schools and barangays will have to work together more now. Some kids going back to school would probably have difficulties involving social skills, mental health, undernourishment, lacking mandatory vaccines, on top of learning deficiencies because of two years of the pandemic,” the legislator said.
She noted that the DOH should provide an additional honorarium or stipend to the barangay health workers that will be deployed to schools in a short duration as this would be another responsibility in addition to their current responsibilities.
“The goal should be all students vaxxed and boosted.”
Aside from the deployment of healthcare frontliners, Co said the best defense would be the inoculation of primary COVID-19 doses and booster shots, adding that the goal should be “all students vaxxed and boosted”.
Co said teachers and other personnel who are not vaccinated but required to report for work could have movements limited to a separate building on campus, or they could also have less workdays on campus and more work at home.
The Department of Education, she said, should be transparent on the vaccination status of their personnel and students on a per school basis.
“There should be weekly public reporting from each school principal up to the DepEd central office,” she said.
