Schools get CDC flexibility on keeping students in class
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is giving schools more flexibility to decide how to safely keep kids in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms while guarding against the further spread of COVID-19.
With the delta variant dominant in the U.S. and just half of adults fully vaccinated, there are concerns about a potential COVID surge in under-vaccinated areas, including among school children. Meanwhile, regions with high inoculation rates and low infections may want to choose lesser levels of protection, said Erin SauberSchatz, who leads the CDC’s Community Intervention and Critical Population Task Force.
The CDC’s updated guidance, released Friday, continues to highlight distancing where possible, screening, mask use, ventilation and hand-washing. The new part: If localities decide not to use these strategies based on local conditions, they should be stopped one at a time, the guidance suggests, with ongoing monitoring for any rise in cases.
“We’ve learned a lot in the last school year about what works,” SauberSchatz said by telephone.
If schools are unable to do the three feet of physical distance recommended in the guidance, the agency recommends implementing all the other prevention strategies and monitoring for any increases in cases.
And anyone who is not fully vaccinated, including students, teachers and staff, should continue to wear masks indoors.
“This updated guidance now accounts for the fact that fully vaccinated people do not have to distance, do not have to wear a mask and can also refrain from quarantine after exposure to someone with COVID-19 and screening testing,” Sauber-Schatz said.
“There will be some children, adolescents and teens who are not fully vaccinated, so those protection strategies will also protect them,” she added.
James Lu, cofounder and president of the Helix lab, which tracks variants, said implementing multiple COVID-19 measures will help K-12 schools open through the fall and winter with younger students not yet able to be vaccinated.
”The delta variant is highly transmissible,” Lu said, “so it is prudent for schools to continue to implement processes like physical distancing, mask wearing and broad screening programs in an effort to reduce transmission.”