If you’re a parent fretting about sending your kid back to school Sept. 8 — the state’s COVID-19 czar gave you one more thing to fret about Friday afternoon.
Not that Dr. Clay Marsh was deliberately setting out to scare, as he spoke during Gov. Jim Justice’s briefing on the coronavirus and its effects across West Virginia.
Marsh told reporters that a West Virginia child is hospitalized and “being treated aggressively and expertly” for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, a condition related to COVID-19.
As many as 570 children nationwide have been diagnosed with MIS-C, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 10 have died from its complications.
This is the first case in West Virginia, Marsh said.
The condition lives up to its name, the CDC said, as it can cause lasting damage to the heart, brain kidneys and eyes.
Vomiting, diarrhea, neck pain, bloodshot eyes and fatigue are among its symptoms.
“This is a syndrome that, really, is where your body’s response to the virus may be the real problem,” Marsh said.
It usually affects young people — from the age of 21 to younger, the physician continued — and can show up around 25 days after an exposure to the coronavirus.
The way to avoid it, Marsh said, is by employing all the recognized measures one would use in attempt of the same for COVID-19.
Monongalia County Schools, in the meantime, is still tending to fall registration and its avenues for attending school in person — or not — after October.
The district will start the school year with a blended-learning approach.
That means alternating days of in-school and at-home learning for the nine-week term, which ends Nov. 2.
Applications are being accepted throughnoon Monday.
The application may be accessed on its website at https://boe.mono.k12.wv.us/ and contains extensive material, including a “Frequently Asked Questions” link, related to back-to-school.
Option No. 2 on the registration, “MCS Distance Learning” is a total remote component using Mon County educators — though, in all likelihood, not your child’s respective teacher.
However, if say, your child is in second grade, he will be taught by a second-grade teacher from Mon, the district said.
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