The following statement can be attributed to Nick Lashutka, President and CEO, Ohio Children’s Hospital Association:

With Ohio’s 2.8 million children returning to school this month, the pediatric experts at Ohio’s children’s hospitals are focused on how children can return to school in person five days a week as safely as possible.  Children’s hospitals are carefully monitoring the impact of the Delta variant and its impact on kids and the increasing number of other respiratory conditions causing an increase in census in our hospitals.

Last year at this time, children were not experiencing COVID-19 at the rate or intensity that we are seeing now. While we are not yet seeing the COVID-19 levels in children that other states are experiencing, we are beginning to experience an increase in both numbers and severity.

Fortunately, we have tools to help children return to school, remain in school and do so as safely as possible, including strongly encouraging wearing masks by all staff and students and vaccinations for staff and children 12 and older.

We hope that students, staff, parents, and families will utilize these tools so that Ohio’s kids can avoid being impacted by COVID-19, and importantly avoid quarantines that would take them out of school for several days or weeks at a time.