As students head back to class, are schools ready to handle COVID-19?

As summer begins to wind down, most children and teenagers across the U.S. are getting ready to head back to school.

Not far behind the start of the school year is the typical start of the season for respiratory viruses, including flu, RSV and COVID-19. Since early May, COVID-19 test positivity and emergency department visits that are diagnosed as COVID-19 infections have steadily increased, although hospitalizations and deaths continue to remain at historically low levels, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Despite these upward trends, school officials from various districts told ABC News that they feel prepared to handle cases of any respiratory viruses that may emerge, and to try and prevent classroom disruptions because of them as much as possible.

"We're always preparing, and I feel very confident that we're going to have a great school year, and we'll get through this respiratory season with no problem," Kim Baumann, lead county nurse for Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) in Georgia, told ABC News. Limiting school closures During the first year of the pandemic, schools switched to remote learning to help stem the spread of the virus. Since then, individual classrooms and, in some cases, entire schools have temporarily gone virtual when outbreaks have popped up.

This year, schools generally are trying to avoid closing if they can, should another viral outbreak surface, in part to avoid the student academic performance losses .