The school year is upon us, after a year and a half of Corona in which the education system functioned with great difficulty, and it has already been determined that it was in fact a lost year in the lives of the children.
No one seems to disagree that the absence of children from schools and learning to zoom have caused tremendous damage to them.
With the end of the recent closure, the mental health clinics were filled with children and adolescents who suffered and are suffering from anxiety, depression and psychosomatic symptoms.
As for children who have suffered from coronary heart disease, only now is the picture of long-term symptoms such as shortness of breath and fatigue becoming clearer, what is called in the scientific literature - Long COVID.
In light of the great suffering that has already been caused, and as we stand towards September 1 in the face of increasing numbers of verified people, about half of whom are children and adolescents, there is an opening of hope in the form of the new outline for the opening of the school year.
The outline relies mainly on three components: One - extensive serological tests at the beginning of the school year to detect recovering children.
These children will immediately receive an “educational green label,” and will be exempt from isolation down the road.
The test is indeed invasive, but from the finger, to hurt children as little as possible.
The second component is rapid tests that will be performed by the parents, also at the beginning of the school year, to locate verified persons, who will not be able to enter the schools until they recover.
The third and most important component: if a verified child is found later in the year, the class will not be closed, but the other children will be tested daily by models that this will be their job - all with the aim of not closing the class and disabling the other children.
The ink on the reports regarding this outline has not yet dried, and it has been immediately criticized from all sides - the tests are unreliable, the parents will lie, how the test kits will reach the parents for the first test of the year, and other such allegations.
The teachers' union has also already condemned this outline to failure.
In general, we are a country that always knows how to say what will not work, but does not do enough to realize what can work, vaccines for example.
The truth is that even the initiators of the outline know that it will rise or fall on the logistical ability to realize it.
But from getting acquainted with similar models in the world, there want to give it a chance.
The logistics systems in government and local authorities are ready to lower the sky for the children so that this model will work.
A critical link in this outline is parental cooperation.
Will the parents really be trustworthy at the beginning of the year, test the children with a quick check at home and report truth about its results?
Will parents be able to reassure their tender child, who is afraid of a finger blood test?
Knowing the parents, I can bet these will surprise us all for good.
I have full confidence in the responsibility and dedication of the parents in the face of the heavy task placed on them.
The reason is simple: no parent will want, in the end, last year's horrific spectacle to repeat itself: entire classes are sent to solitary confinement, including their children, poor children close to zooming in for hours and days, and parents unable to get to work normally.
What we saw must not happen again in 1952. Kindergartens and schools must be opened on September 1, and I call on parents to prove to us that this is indeed their best time.
The author is the chairman of the Association of Pediatrics, the Adelson School of Medicine, Ariel University and Maccabi Health Services.