New COVID-19 Guidance For PreK-12 Schools In CT Released

Good Monday morning Connecticut,

Some of us will see snow flurries Monday, especially in southeastern Connecticut, where an inch of snow may accumulate. A coating of snow is possible at the shoreline and for inland and northern areas, it's likely just a cold, dry winter day. Temperatures won't climb above the freezing mark and temperatures will drop into the teens tonight. It is shaping up to be a very cold week.

There is a chance for snow late Thursday and Friday, but we'll know more in the days ahead about that possible storm. The chance for snow currently on Thursday and Friday is between 50-60 percent, according to the National Weather Service, so it's far from a lock.

Statement From DPH Commissioner Manisha Juthani, MD, Regarding Updated COVID-19 Guidance For PreK-12 Schools

The Connecticut Department of Public Health has updated its COVID-19 guidance for quarantine, isolation, testing and contact tracing policies and procedures for PreK-12 schools.

This document was developed in collaboration with the Connecticut State Department of Education and is based on the updated guidance that was released by the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention on Dec. 27. This update outlines a set of optional policy and procedural changes that school districts may choose to implement at this time.

These options refocus the resources currently available to PreK-12 schools for COVID-19 prevention toward those activities most likely to reduce the risk of transmission and in consideration for quarantine and isolation for individuals testing positive for or exposed to someone with COVID-19.

This guidance reinforces the Department of Public Health’s three-pronged approach to fighting this virus: vaccination, masking and testing. These simple steps are crucial in decreasing the risk of severe disease, hospitalization and death from COVID-19.

Quarantine, Isolation, Testing, and Return to Activities

In brief:

• Individuals who are even mildly symptomatic with any of the symptoms associated with COVID19 should immediately isolate at home, test for the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) with a PCR, antigen, or self-test, and remain away from activities outside of the home until they are fever-free for at least 24 hours and other symptoms are significantly improved.

• Individuals who test positive for COVID-19 should isolate at home for at least 5 days, or longer if symptoms develop and persist. A mask should continue to be worn for an additional 5 days at all times when around others.

• Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated individuals who are notified that they have had a close contact with an individual who has confirmed or suspected COVID-19 should immediately quarantine at home and test for the virus 5 days after their last exposure to the COVID-19 case.
This is especially important in situations where extended high-intensity exposure may have occurred, such as with household contacts, in unmasked social settings (e.g., sleepovers, parties), and/or during athletic activities.

Contact Tracing

Because individual-level contact tracing is a tool that becomes less effective when community transmission levels are high, DPH recommends that schools begin to refocus the activities of health staff away from the investigation of relatively low risk in-school exposures and toward the identification, early isolation, and clinical management of students and staff with active symptoms that could be related to COVID-19.

At this time given: 1) the current very high level of community transmission throughout our state; 2) the experience of Connecticut school districts that have conducted in-person learning throughout the past two years of the pandemic, even in the setting of very high community transmission; 3) the infrequent conversion of close contacts; and 4) the need to prioritize available resources in PreK-12 schools, the position of the Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) is that routine contact tracing of individual exposures that occur inside schools or during school-organized and supervised activities can be discontinued (subject to the conditions and provisions indicated below) without posing a significant increased risk of negative impact on in-school transmission of COVID-19 or access to in-person learning.

Several factors that influence this position include:

• Universal implementation of, and strict compliance with, robust mitigation strategies in all PreK-12 schools in our state.

• Infrequently identified person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 inside school buildings, especially in relation to other activities and environments children are engaging with outside of school.

• Very high numbers of student quarantine days based on individual contact tracing in schools compared to the very low number of school close contacts that become infected.

• Current delays in the receipt of test results due to high testing demand combined with new shortened isolation and quarantine times for individuals make it likely that many students would be outside of their quarantine period by the time contact tracing could be completed. School districts that opt to discontinue individual-level contact tracing in their PreK-12 schools should ensure that they continue to:

• Enforce universal masking rules inside schools (including appropriate exemptions allowed for those individuals who cannot consistently and correctly wear a mask due to medical, developmental, or other appropriate reasons).

• Take steps to ensure that periods of unmasking inside the school (e.g., meal periods) are as brief and as distanced as possible.

• Appropriately notify staff and parents/guardians of students regarding positive cases occurring in the school population. Examples of appropriate notifications would include classroom-level notifications in lower grades (where classroom groups generally stay together for the duration of the school day), grade-level or “group-level” notifications at the middlegrade levels, school-level notifications in high schools, and notifications to athletic teams, clubs, or other groups as appropriate.

>>>CT health officials shared specific scenarios for vaccinated, partially vaccinated, and unvaccinated students and staff, which you can view by clicking here.

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