the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) today released updated COVID-19 K-12 operational guidance for local health departments (LHDs). The updated guidance, which reflects recent changes to K-12 recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is aligned with the Administration’s goal of opening schools for in-person instruction for the remainder of the 2020-2021 school year.
“Though outbreaks do occur in school settings, multiple studies have shown that transmission within school settings is typically lower than or at least similar to levels of community transmission when mitigation strategies are in place in schools,” said Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli. “Based on this data and federal guidance, the Department of Health, in collaboration with the Department of Education, has updated its guidance to help local health departments assist schools in providing safe environments for students and staff.”
NJDOH’s guidance is intended to offer public health recommendations and strategies for LHDs regarding K-12 school operations. However, schools that have implemented mitigation strategies that have allowed them to successfully open to full in-person instruction may generally continue to follow these strategies.
Pursuant to the updated guidance, LHDs should continue to use the COVID-19 Regional Risk Matrix to provide guidance to school districts. NJDOH’s COVID-19 Activity Level Index provides information on COVID-19 transmission at the regional level, characterizing risk as low (green), moderate (yellow), high (orange), and very high (red). The critical updates to the guidance document are summarized below.
NJDOH recommends full in-person instruction with a minimum of 3 feet of physical distancing between students maintained in classrooms for elementary schools across low, moderate, and high risk and for middle/high school when the region is at a low or moderate risk level. When the region is in high risk, middle/high schools should maintain 6 feet of physical distancing between students in classrooms to the greatest extent practicable and consider in-person instruction if able to maximize physical distancing of 6 feet or more. Strict adherence to mask-wearing should be enforced at all times across all risk and grade levels. The CDC and NJDOH continue to recommend six feet of physical distancing in all settings when masks cannot be worn, such as while eating and drinking. Six feet of physical distancing is particularly important between staff members in the school building and between staff members and students, in common areas, such as school lobbies and auditoriums, and during activities when increased exhalation occurs, such as singing, shouting, band practice, sports, or exercise (even if masks are worn).
NJDOH’s guidance recommends that students, teachers, and staff who are at high risk of severe illness or who live with people at high risk be offered the option of virtual instruction.
Students and staff must continue to stay home when sick. Students and staff, unless fully vaccinated and asymptomatic, should stay home if they have been in close contact with someone with COVID-19 within the past 14 days. If someone in their household is being tested for COVID-19 due to illness, students and staff, unless fully vaccinated and asymptomatic, should also stay home until the test result is received.
Educators and staff who have been fully vaccinated should follow the NJDOH Guidelines for Vaccinated Individuals. Vaccinated persons should continue to follow current guidance to protect themselves and others, including wearing a mask, staying at least 6 feet away from others while in the community, avoiding crowds, avoiding poorly ventilated spaces, covering coughs and sneezes, washing hands often, following CDC travel guidance, and following any applicable workplace or school guidance, including guidance related to personal protective equipment use and SARS-CoV-2 testing.
To reduce risk of transmission in schools, it is recommended that schools work to increase the circulation of outdoor air, by opening windows and doors, using child-safe fans and exhaust fans and also consider having activities, classes or lunches outdoors when circumstances allow.
If an outbreak is identified, schools and LHDs should promptly intervene to control spread (including consideration of a temporary transition of classrooms or cohorts to remote learning) while working to determine whether the outbreak originated in the school setting and assess potential contributors to the outbreak. The updated guidance document addresses multiple outbreak scenarios and provides the recommended responsive action.
Regional risk levels are just one tool that LHDs and schools can use when assessing COVID-19 risk. LHDs have additional knowledge of COVID-19 in their jurisdictions that can inform local planning and response actions. Many factors need to be considered when deciding to transition entire schools, cohorts, or in-individual classrooms to remote learning, such as whether all close contacts of cases can be identified and excluded from school, and the distribution of cases within the school.
To view the full guidance, visit https://www.state.nj.us/health/cd/documents/topics/NCOV/RecommendationsForLocalHealthDepts_K12Schools.pdf
For Ridgewood public schools, they are now at the high risk level and getting very close to the VERY HIGH level following the past 2 week virus spread in our community. This means that for the middle schools ( Ben Franklin and George Washington), with masks required to be worn at all times , SIX feet between students is required as it is with Ridgewood High School. Is this possible if most students return?
It is OK to re open the schools in the spring time when the weather is warmer and the windows can be opened for ventilation but what happens next winter when the virus will still be here and the windows need to be closed? Come on BOE, budget for and retrofit the school’s air filtration systems ASAP to provide the best protection for our children because they deserve nothing less.
To Anonymous above: advanced filtration systems in schools are a waste of money and resources. The teachers are now vaccinated. COVID is less dangerous for kids than the flu, and it’s not even close. Yes, please where masks, avoid crowded indoor dining and COVID deniers, maintain 3 ft, open the windows, but stop with the unscientifically based fear-mongering. It is time to crawl out of your hole and join the rest of society. COVID is not going anywhere unfortunately. Children on the other hand are our future, and if we abandon them and place teacher union priorities above them like the Ridgewood BOE and superintendent’s office have done for the past year, history and Ridgewood taxpaying voters/parents will look back very poorly on them.
Hey Jack, you are barking up the wrong tree. Yesterday, Michigan just released a dire warning to it’s citizens that ALL kids in school are in jeopardy because of the mutations that are negatively affecting a lot of otherwise healthy kids with positive COVID cases in kids now the largest category of new infections in that state. As a parent, I am not hiding in any hole, I am making sure my children are indeed the future, and remain healthy and well adjusted emotionally so that they don’t express any negative feelings about how I and my wife wish that my $46,000 in annual local taxes are spent. My kids are smart enough to know that I am right on this subject and yes an upgraded filtration system would help next fall because unlike the seasonal flu, this virus is deadly, is less than .01 micron in size, and will spread like wildfire once the windows are closed when it gets cold next winter.
To Jack, ( and/or James), if you still are interested in learning the facts about COVID and it;s spreading “like wildfire” in school age children, from the local Mich newspaper:
…And people in that 30-49 age group also are most likely to be parents of school-age children, among whom the virus is spreading like wildfire.
Schools as outbreak source
The biggest source of outbreaks in Michigan right now is tied to K-12 schools, state data show, where the virus is taking hold and spreading among athletes and students, pushing many school districts that just reopened to in-person instruction to go close their doors and return to virtual learning.
Sixty three new school-associated COVID-19 outbreaks were reported this week in Michigan, adding to the 144 ongoing outbreaks.
Grosse Ile Township Schools Superintendent Joanne Lelekatch sent an email to parents Wednesday announcing Grosse Ile High School will switch to remote learning the rest of this week and may continue with virtual education after spring break because of the high number of cases and quarantined students.
Grosse Ile High School
“We anticipated that we may encounter positive COVID cases just as we had in our hybrid model,” Lelekatch wrote. “What was not anticipated was the number of positive cases that would result from winter sports practices, competitions, family transmission and the impact it would have on the number of students who would need to be quarantined.”
The school has 12 positive COVID-19 cases and 98 students in quarantine, in addition to a number of students being self-quarantined by parents, she said.
“Today, approximately 25% of students attended school in person. … We are preparing to adjust back to the hybrid model if necessary on Monday, April 5, 2021.”
Grosse Ile isn’t alone.
Eisenhower High School in Macomb County’s Shelby Township also returned to online learning after announcing 40 new cases and hundreds quarantining there.
Keith Elementary School in West Bloomfield did the same last week.
“We are concerned about the infection rate,” Nikolai Vitti, superintendent of Detroit Public Schools, said Wednesday. “With spring break around the corner (next week), we are likely to use the week after spring break … for online learning and an opportunity for people to socially isolate and be tested negative before they come back to work.”
Vitti said the district also is preparing to launch a COVID-19 testing system for students and staff that would rely on saliva samples, rather than the more invasive nasal swabs.
More:Some Michigan schools return to remote learning amid rise in COVID-19 cases
Details are still being worked out, but random students would likely be asked to volunteer for the tests.
“A lot of this was in the works already, but I think it becomes more relevant now because of the increase in the infection rate,” he said. “This is not official. This is something that we’re considering.”
New recommendations from CDC
School districts are also grappling with CDC recommendations that suggest returning children to classrooms is safe and that 3 feet of distance between students is enough to prevent the spread of the virus.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said Wednesday that while it’s important to get as many students back to in-person learning as possible, “we need to watch the B.1.1.7 spread. We certainly don’t want schools to open and then re-close. The whole point is to keep schools open in the context of all the layered mitigation that we put forward through the recommendations.”
More:CDC says 3 feet of social distance is OK for students in schools
More:Michigan schools scramble to offer more in-person learning to qualify for COVID-19 relief
The agency’s recommendations, Walensky explained, were updated Friday and are more nuanced than simply recommending 3 feet of distance in all schools. In communities where there’s a high rate of transmission of COVID-19, high schools and middle schools should consider requiring the full 6 feet of distancing.
“It has a layered mitigation approach, and it has approach by different ranges of transmission,” she said. “So areas with high transmission, we are limiting what we’re recommending for in-person attendance in middle schools and high schools because of potential increased transmission for the older students.
“We believe, and the science suggests, that 3 feet versus 6 feet would be possible, is possible, and it is safe when all of the layered mitigation strategies that we have suggested and recommended are in place — so, 100% masking should be safe within all of your schools as long as you’re talking about the younger children.”
Khaldun said the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is updating its recommendations for social distancing in schools because of the high rate of spread of the virus.
“Six feet, that is really the gold standard that we hope that people will try to adhere to in the schools,” she said.
Some education leaders, however, say that with all students back to face-to-face instruction, 6 feet of distance is difficult to maintain.
“We’ll be hopeful at 3 feet,” George Heitsch, interim superintendent of Birmingham Public Schools, told the Free Press earlier this month as that district prepared to return to full days of instruction. “We really intend on 3 feet, but 6 feet is not possible with the volume of students.”
Walled Lake Consolidated Schools Superintendent Kenneth Gutman acknowledged that more students means less social distancing.
“There is a lot of controversy about what constitutes appropriate social distancing anymore,” Gutman said. “You see some saying 3 feet, some saying 4 feet, some saying 6 feet.”
Gutman said defending against COVID-19 spread is a layered approach that includes not only social distancing, but also masks, hand washing and other measures.
“Clearly, with more students in the building there will not be as much social distancing as there would be with fewer students in the building,” he said. “Let’s be transparent about that. It won’t be the same level.”
Watching and waiting
Hospital association spokesman John Karasinski said he is concerned about the rising case rates in Michigan and what this latest surge, but the MHA is not yet ready to press state health officials to make policy changes.
Instead, he told the Free Press: “We urge Michiganders to be more cautious when around those they don’t live with, whether it’s for school-based activities, church, social events or otherwise.
“We must continue to be vigilant about mask wearing and distancing, especially when indoors. As vaccine eligibility expands, we urge everyone to get the vaccine as soon as it is available to them — and not to let their guard down once they receive it.”
Michigan now has 988 known cases of the B.1.1.7 variant — the most of any state except Florida. This strain of the virus not only spreads about 50% more easily, but scientists also are investigating whether it also leads to more severe illness, hospitalizations and deaths.
In addition, health officials said Wednesday that the state also has confirmed two cases of the B.1.351 strain that originated in South Africa, and one case in Oakland County of the B.1.429 variant of concern that originated in California, which also are more transmissible.
The variants, they say, could be driving case numbers and hospitalizations.
Hospital bed occupancy for COVID-19 patients statewide was at 72% on Monday, according to state health department data. Thirteen hospitals reported they were at capacity of 90% or more.
“While much of our health care workforce is vaccinated, caring for a third surge of COVID-19 patients is mentally and physically draining for all front-line caregivers,” said Brian Peters, the hospital association’s CEO.
“Failing to follow proven preventive measures is not only dangerous to our health but hurts our economy and delays when in-person activities such as returning to work can occur with minimal restrictions,” he said. “It will still take a few more months to vaccinate everyone, which is why we have to do everything in our power to slow the current growth. While you wait your turn for your safe and effective vaccine, mask up, practice social distancing and wash your hands.”
Khaldun said the state is nowhere near to approaching herd immunity yet. So far, 3.7 million shots have been administered, and 16.8% of Michiganders are fully vaccinated, the state’s COVID-19 vaccine dashboard shows.
“We know that the virus is very present in our community in general,” she said. “So whether it’s a child who’s playing a sport, perhaps, or whether it’s someone else who gets it in the general community, it’s just present. And so it’s really, really important that people continue to wear their masks, wash their hands and socially distance until we get enough people vaccinated so we can reach that herd immunity.”
Beaumont Health announced Wednesday that it will reinstate visitor restrictions at all of its eight southeastern Michigan hospitals starting at 8 a.m. Thursday because of the rise in COVID-19 cases.
Dr. Nick Gilpin, medical director of infection prevention and epidemiology for Beaumont Health, said he knows that people are tired of following COVID-19 public health guidelines, but urged people to do all they can to continue to do so.
“This is unfortunately becoming a familiar refrain for us here,” he said. “COVID-19 cases are now rising at a pretty alarming rate throughout Michigan and especially in southeast Michigan, and we at Beaumont Health are pretty concerned about the trend that we’re seeing.”
Free Press staff writer Kristi Tanner contributed to this report.
Contact Kristen Jordan Shamus: kshamus@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kristenshamus.
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Not sure what Michigan has to do with nj ,but what you seem to be saying its time to look for alternatives to public education
Agreed public education is a universal failure time to embrace technology and move on