Taiwan’s private kindergartens are redoubling efforts to keep kids healthy amid a coronavirus outbreak that has reached Taiwan. Through a strict regimen of hand hygiene and disinfection, they are hoping to keep their doors open and ensure children don’t fall ill.
Taiwan’s schools are shuttered amid coronavirus fears, but private kindergartens remain open as ever. Though always vigilant against germs, these kindergartens are taking extra measures to keep kids from getting sick and to reassure worried parents.
First, they are checking children’s temperatures regularly. Second, in addition to supervising regular hand washing breaks, they are spraying kids’ hands with disinfectant at regular intervals throughout the day. Third, once class is over, teachers begin an aggressive and thorough cleaning process, disinfecting everything in their classrooms from drawers and shoe cubbies to door handles.
There is a fourth measure- ensuring that kids wear protective surgical masks- but this has been a bit harder to implement. That’s because the government is rationing surgical masks amid high demand, and child-size masks are in particularly short supply. Each government-approved pharmacy is only being given a supply of fifty children’s masks per day.
One hospital pediatrician in Kaohsiung has come up with a stop-gap measure to at least give kids some protection when kid-size masks are nowhere to be found. This involves putting an adult-size mask over a child’s face and using a fastener to draw in the strings so it fits snugly over the child’s nose and mouth. It’s not perfect, but it will do in a pinch.