CDC Approves Schools’ Coronavirus’ Test-to-Stay ‘Policies | California News

By MIKE STOBBE, AP medical writer

NEW YORK (AP) – U.S. health officials are approving “test-to-stay” policies that allow close contacts of students infected with the coronavirus to remain in classrooms if they are negative.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided to take the approach more strongly, already used by many school districts, after research into such policies in the Chicago and Los Angeles areas found that COVID infections -19 did not increase when using approach.

“The test to stay is an encouraging public health practice to help keep our children in school,” CDC director Dr Rochelle Walensky said on Friday.

Official CDC guidelines for schools are that when a person in a school tests positive for COVID-19 infection, those considered to be in close contact should remain out of school, in home quarantine. , during 10 days.

With Friday’s announcement, the CDC says test-to-stay programs and quarantine approaches are both equally good options for schools.

Hundreds of schools have adopted stay testing policies, and several states have funded statewide stay testing policies to prevent students from spending long periods away from school.

Previously, the CDC had said the approach was promising, provided other measures such as masking for teachers and students were followed.

The CDC worked with some school districts to evaluate the programs, and the agency released two studies that indicated they were working well.

One was in suburb of Lake County, Illinois, just north of Chicago, which adopted a program in August. Close contacts were allowed to remain in school as long as the infected person and close contact were masked where exposure could have occurred, the close contact had no symptoms, and the close contact had been tested a, three, five and seven days after exposure to the infected person.

Infections developed in only 16 of the more than 1,000 close contacts who were followed, a transmission rate of about 1.5%. Health officials felt this was a successful approach that kept many students in school.

Similar results were reported in a similar study that looked at what happened this fall in schools in Los Angeles County, California. The researchers counted 7,511 close contacts with students in schools who tried the strategy, and the secondary infection rate was 0.7%.

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