CT stays course as CDC changes mind about students in school.
Schools, it turns out, are not the safest place to be during a COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In a reversal, the CDC has stripped its website of guidance that promoted in-person learning and now says there is a growing body of evidence that children of all ages are susceptible to infection and might play a role in transmission.
It goes on to list in-person learning as a high risk.
The news comes as Connecticut approaches the milestone of 100,000 COVID cases, and an increasing number of school districts take it upon themselves to revert to remote learning.
The state has continued to leave it up to school districts, even as the infection rate hovers at around 6 percent, putting most school districts in the so-called red-alert zone.
New Haven and Danbury have spent the fall in a fullremote status. They have been joined, at least for a time, by Bridgeport, Ansonia, Brookfield, Hamden, Newtown, Shelton, Torrington and Waterbury.
Still, state Department of Education officials on Thursday continue to reinforce the importance of in-person schooling as the best learning model for meeting children’s educational and nonacademic needs.
And in his daily COVID briefing on Thursday, Gov. Ned Lamont called increasing COVID numbers disturbing, but vowed to keep schools open as long as possible.
“That could change,” he said. But, the governor said, it is safer for a masked third grader to be in class than be out in the broader community.
“There is no substitute for in person learning,” he said.
The majority of K-8 schools are still in person, Lamont pointed out.
Lamont went on to blame much of the school spread to school sports. He said athletic events have been traced back to 17 school closures, 29 outbreaks and 235 teachers forced into quarantine.
A pause was recently placed on high school sports.
“Unless and until local conditions specifically dictate the need to do so, we don’t think arbitrary, datebased closures of school are warranted at this time,” said Peter Yazbak, a state Department of Education spokesman.
Yazbak said at this point it appears that the mitigation strategies in place in schools — masks, distancing, cleaning and hygiene, ventilation and cohorting — have been effective.
“These decisions need to be made at local level where this information is being gathered,” Yazbak said.
Lamont said he considers schools essential.
“I am doing everything I can to keep them safe,” he said. “And at least to have the opportunity to go to the classroom.”