The Countdown: What parents can do to protect students from COVID

NEW YORK (WABC) — In this edition of ‘The Countdown,’ we dig deeper into the upcoming school year as New York City makes big changes to their COVID guidance in classrooms.

There will be no more daily health screenings and masks will no longer be required, except for students returning from a positive COVID test.

With students gradually returning to the classroom, what can you do to keep your child safe from COVID?

Dr. Sallie Permar, the chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, joined us for Monday’s show.

Here are the rest of the headlines from Monday:

Teen’s arm severed after fall while attempting to subway surf: sources

A 15-year-old boy who had his arm severed by a subway train in Queens Monday morning was attempting to subway surf, according to police sources. The sources said the boy was with three other teenagers and was climbing on top of the train car when he fell near the Jackson Heights-Roosevelt Avenue station just before 10:30 a.m.

NYC congestion pricing latest

The MTA held another public hearing on Monday to discuss congestion pricing. The plan is intended to encourage more people to use mass transit by tolling drivers south of 60th Street in Manhattan. Right now, there are seven different proposals on the table.

NASA scrubs launch of moon rocket Artemis 1 after engine problem

NASA called off the launch of its mighty new moon rocket on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard Monday after a last-minute cascade of problems culminating in unexplained engine trouble. The next launch attempt will not take place until Friday at the earliest and could be off until mid-September or later.

No credible threats, but security tight at U.S. Open, NYPD says

While there are no specific or credible threats to this year’s event, a new NYPD threat assessment obtained by ABC News called the annual tennis tournament attended by hundreds of thousands of spectators “an opportunistic target for malicious actors that seek to inflict mass casualties.”

You can watch ‘The Countdown’ live Monday-Friday at 6:30 p.m. on ABC7NY.com or our ABC7NY app on Roku, FireTV, Apple TV and Android TV.

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