CDC Releases School Reopening Guidance

While many schools across the country have reopened to in-person learning—either full- or part-time—some have remained closed since last March when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic due to SARS-CoV-2 virus. There have been debates between teacher unions and school districts on whether it is safe to reopen schools as the number of COVID-19 cases remains high and the original virus now includes several strains. In the midst of all the uncertainty, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) late last week released updated school reopening guidance which offers infection control strategies but does not mandate reopening, Bloomberg reports.

The new CDC guidelines focus on five COVID-19 mitigation strategies that include: proper use of face masks; social distancing of at least six feet; proper handwashing; strict cleaning, maintenance, and ventilation protocols; and the implementation of rapid contact tracing, isolation, and quarantine practices, according to CNN.

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that although each strategy is important, the agency recommends prioritizing the first two—masks and social distancing. “These recommendations simply provide schools a long-needed road map for how to reopen safely under different levels of disease in the community,” she said.

Walensky also urged states to make it a priority to have teachers vaccinated, and test students and teachers regularly. She added that the guidance is based on scientific research and free of political interference. The agency did note that the guidance will need to be updated due to the contagious variants of the coronavirus in the U.S.

The guidelines also urge school officials to closely monitor community transmission based on a color-coded chart to describe levels of transmission from blue for low transmission, yellow for moderate, orange for substantial, and red for high transmission.

The CDC recommends monitoring the total number of new cases per 100,000 residents over the past seven days in the community, as well as the percent of positive tests over the past seven days, also known as the positivity rate, CNBC reports. Schools could safely reopen for full in-person learning if the communities they are in report fewer than 50 new cases per 100,000 residents and have lower than 8% positivity rate. A recent CNN analysis found that about 89%—more than 65.3 million of school children under 18—in the U.S. live in a red zone county with high levels of COVID-19 transmission under the new school guidelines.

Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, describes that the CDC recommendations as an “informed, tactile plan that has the potential to help schools stay safe.”

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said, “Now that we have clearer CDC guidance, state and local decision makers need to be able to look educators, students, and parents in the eyes and ensure their safety with full confidence.”

The U.S. Department of Education also released volume 1 of its guidance for in-person learning to supplement CDC’s guidance.