With the number of COVID-19 cases rising across the country and within the district, following proper safety guidelines can be important.

Perhaps the most important things people can do is social distance and wear a mask as it can help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“So the best way we can protect ourselves, and others from COVID at this school is maintaining social distance and that’s trying to stay away from large roads or large gatherings and not staying together for greater than 15 minutes,” school nurse Emily Mikeska said. “Also wearing your masks at all times will certainly violate any close contact if you are identified without a mask for being close to somebody. This would get you possibly into a quarantine if you are around someone who is covid positive.”

But simply wearing a mask isn’t enough.

“So to wear your mask, the proper way is to cover the whole part of your nose and hopefully it can also cover your chin securing the edges,” Mikeska said. “We do not want masks under the nose and we don’t want masks under the chin either. So, wear them over your noses and secure it over your chin.”

And one of the final things everybody can do to slow the spread of the virus is washing your hands the correct way.

“So the proper handwashing technique is to turn on the water, wet your hands and lather up with soap really well and you want to rub your palms vigorously,” Mikeska said. “Go from the top of your hands up to your wrists and you want to be including the space between your fingers.  And lather up really really well. This should take about 20 seconds in order to get a really good scrub on your hands. Then, carefully rinse them off. You can then turn your water off and dry your hands properly.”