Cottage Health helps Santa Barbara parents know what to expect before students return to school

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Students are preparing for the pandemic to impact a third school year. The 2021-22 school year will be much different from the start of the 2020-21 school year. For starters, many older students and the schools’ faculty have had a chance to be vaccinated. However, there will be similar masking, distancing and extra sanitizing trends.

To help parents and students prepare for a third COVID-19 school year, Cottage Health hosted a virtual town hall Thursday evening. During the event infectious disease specialist, Dr. Lynn Fitzgibbons presented the facts about the pandemic. 

Over the 18 months and counting of the pandemic, Dr. Fitzgibbons has been a Santa Barbara County expert on the virus. She has followed the virus, how it spreads, the vaccine, and the benefits of masking and getting vaccinated.

During the presentation, Dr. Fitzgibbons talked about the Delta variant, healthcare impacts, pediatric cases and how successful the vaccines have been.

Cottage Health is currently working to get the presentation translated to Spanish. They hope to have both English and Spanish versions of the presentation available by Monday.