QV district should be commended

Nearly 70 years ago, Sewickley area parents were asked to volunteer their children for some of the first human testing of the Salk polio vaccine. This program was coordinated by local pediatricians, working with Dr. Jonas Salk and the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children in Leet Township, now known as the Watson Institute.

One of those pediatricians, the late Dr. Robert D. Nix, interviewed by the Herald in April 1985, stated that of the parents contacted, “the response was overwhelming. I don’t think a single parent said ‘no.’ ”

With that in mind, it’s disconcerting to hear local residents and parents today, some who may be descended from those first volunteers for the Salk testing, vehemently oppose preventative measures against covid being taken by Quaker Valley School District and nearly two-thirds of the school districts in Allegheny County.

The QV school board and district administration are to be commended for establishing a policy that is both responsive and scalable to the evidence gathered by those charged with the authority to manage the local and national response to the pandemic.

I’m forced to wonder with some trepidation what the result may have been had the objections raised by today’s parents to wearing masks in school been prevalent back in 1953.

John L. Linko

Leetsdale

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