MADISON, WI (WTAQ) – As the school year creeps up around the corner, the Department of Health Services is releasing guidelines for school districts to utilize in preventing, investigating, and controlling potential COVID-19 outbreaks.
Kids getting sick at school isn’t all that uncommon. That’s why some officials say it’s more of a matter of when – not if – outbreaks will appear when schools return to class.
“With the disease activity we are seeing, the reality is that we will see outbreaks in schools once the school year starts,” says Bureau of Communicable Diseases Acting Director Traci DeSalvo, “We continue to follow the science of the virus, just as we have throughout the pandemic response. And this guidance was informed by measures taken in countries where in person learning has already started.”
The guidelines cover preventative measures like physical distancing, increased hand washing, and wearing the face coverings. It also addresses steps that districts can take to identify cases and close contact – and provides considerations for local health departments when it comes to contact tracing and isolation and quarantine practices.
However, the guidance depends on each individual situation. It isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach.
“It’s something that’s going to vary from school to school and district to district. That’s why our guidance really provides a set of guidelines but isn’t so prescriptive about things that you have to do in every setting,” DeSalvo explains, “Having a particular classroom that might need to be sent to a virtual learning style for a little while, or perhaps taking it beyond that to the whole school – just depending on the context and the spread of that outbreak.”
With a small group in a single classroom who are physically distancing appropriately, DeSalvo says you might not have a lot of close contacts who would have to be excluded in quarantine. In that case, they might not need to go towards a virtual learning method necessarily for the whole group.
But in other situations, you might need to. For example, if you have a kindergarten class with someone who’s ill and lots of students in close contact with each other, the whole classroom would likely then move to a virtual learning style for a period of time.
“If there’s a situation where other outbreak mitigation measures have been implemented and they’re just not effective at halting the outbreak transmission that certainly would be a situation where school and district administrators should consider temporary classroom or school closures,” says Division of Public Health Interim Administrator Stephanie Smiley, “Sometimes, certainly with norovirus, and COVID-19 would be no different – classroom or school-wide cleaning and disinfection, that would be a situation where you might consider closing a school temporarily to complete that deep cleaning…We do see some school closures that occur similarly due to absenteeism or or staffing issues.”
Local health departments will have to work in conjunction with school districts to make that final decision.
And while the guidance is primarily intended for K-12 schools and students, Smiley says it could easily apply to higher education or any other type of environment where people are gathering – as health officials anticipate seeing outbreaks in those settings as well.
To access and read the guidelines, head to the Department of Health Services website.
