EDITORIAL: Reawakening Consciousness Against COVID-19 As Schools Fully Reopen

With the next stage in the relaxation process meted on the Coronavirus pandemic, the coast appears to be getting clearer by the day for academic activities to fully resume across board. The State Government of Osun, in consonance with happenings in other places, has scheduled reopening of schools for the rest of pupils and students in elementary, middle and high schools for Monday, September 21, 2020. This is a progressive follow-up to the earlier reopening made for students / pupils at exit classes sometimes in August. This recent resumption equally signals the imminent resumption of tertiary institutions in no distant future. At all levels, full  physical classroom instructions, other than virtual, simulated lectures, become the restored order.

Now, there arises the need to resound notes of caution to the resuming youths and all concerned stakeholders, since it is not yet Uhuru in the life-saving battle against the devastating and debilitating COVID-19.

As teachers and students resume to see through the old, almost truncated academic session, they are enjoined to be conscious of exactitude in timing and the expediency of rounding off judiciously within the regulation time set for every activity.

Across the divides of private / public sectors, we caution strict adherence to all the guidelines and protocols set out to stem the spread of the COVID-19 virus, thereby putting at bay inadvertent practices that could endanger the lives of our youths, who we collectively cherish as prides of today and tomorrow. For their age grades, they need adequate oversight and guidance at this time, more than ever before.

It is visionary that Governor Adegboyega Oyetola, in conjunction with the Federal Government, had revitalized basic health facilities across the state, as if in anticipation of a COVID-19 period and an aftermath like today. We must make maximum capital out of that foundation to guarantee public health safety.

The right attitude that should remain with us in the incoming post-COVID-19 period is that we should never be thrown off-guard.  Sanitation and personal hygiene should remain our cherished creed, while our daily ways of life should be reordered such as to have wider tolerances for hand washing, physical distancing and avoidance of overcrowded convergences.

On the whole, our intimacy behaviour: embrace, hugs and body contact, crowd jamborees -our entire clustering and settlement configuration – need to give way to social distancing of every category, which is better suited to the realities of this period. Only in this doing would we demonstrate that we have learnt proper lessons and internalized those lessons, permanently, beyond the COVID-19 pandemic era.