The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday unveiled new guidelines on how schools can safely reopen for personal learning, despite the spread of coronavirus and new highly contagious variants.
The guidance advises schools to grade their reopening plans according to the severity of the outbreak in their areas. It recommends that schools adopt “essential elements” in resuming face-to-face learning, including the use of masks, physical distance and monitoring the level of dissemination in the surrounding community.
The Department of Education simultaneously launched volume 1 of its face-to-face learning guidelines to complement the CDC guidelines.
“I want to be clear. With the launch of this operational strategy, the CDC is not forcing schools to reopen.” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a conference call with reporters. “These recommendations simply provide schools with a long-needed roadmap for doing this safely at different levels of disease in the community.”
As “additional layers” of Covid-19 prevention, the CDC says schools should also implement a testing program to identify and isolate infected people and vaccinate teachers and staff “as soon as supplies allow”. Walensky urged states to give teachers and educational staff priority access to vaccines.
“The data suggest that it is possible for communities to eliminate cases of COVID-19 and, at the same time, keep schools open to face-to-face education,” says the guidance. “In addition, models of consistent implementation of mitigation measures in schools have shown success in limiting outbreaks and infections in schools.”
However, the agency noted that the guidelines may need to be updated as new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus spread across the U.S.
“If we get to a point where we are beyond the red zone here, really high levels of community spread related to the variants or related to just more transmission, we may need to revisit this again,” said Walensky.
The CDC said that the first step in considering reopening schools should be to assess the level of dissemination in the community. The agency recommended that schools monitor the total number of new cases per 100,000 residents in the past seven days in the community, as well as the percentage of positive tests in the last seven days, also known as the positivity rate.
All schools, says the CDC, can safely reopen for fully face-to-face learning if they follow the appropriate protocols and are located in communities that report fewer than 50 new cases per 100,000 residents in the past seven days and have a positivity rate of less than 8 %. It is possible that schools in communities with higher levels of dissemination reopen for face-to-face learning in a few days or with limited frequency and stricter infection prevention measures, said the CDC.
Walensky noted that more than 90% of K-12 schools in the country are currently in high-transmission areas. In communities where there are very low levels of spread, schools can even relax the infection prevention protocol, such as physical distance, she added.
“When communities implement and adhere strictly to mitigation strategies, the level of transmission in the community decreases,” says the new guidance. “This, in turn, will allow schools that are open for classroom learning to remain open and help schools that have not yet reopened to return to classroom teaching.”
The CDC noted that younger children may be less susceptible to Covid-19 than older children of middle and high school age. He said schools should prioritize bringing back elementary school students who are less likely to become seriously ill due to Covid-19 and who seem to spread the virus less than teenagers.
And the CDC urged school administrators and local authorities to “promote fair access to healthy educational environments for students and staff” for all students. White House Covid-19 response officials said equity would be the “northern star” for the federal response to the pandemic.
“The absence of face-to-face educational options can put children of all origins at a disadvantage, especially children in low-income communities who may be at an educational disadvantage,” says the new guidance. “On the other hand, certain racial and ethnic groups have borne a disproportionate burden of disease and serious consequences from COVID-19.”
The agency said school districts should conduct outreach activities for needy families, “including parents / guardians of black students, low-income students, students with disabilities, students learning English, homeless students and students in foster homes.”
Walensky and Donna Harris-Aikens, senior policy and planning consultant at the Department of Education, announced the new guidance in a conference call with reporters.
The president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, welcomed the new guidance, saying it should have been launched 10 months ago. She also urged Congress to approve funding for school districts to help ease the costs of complying with the new guidance.
“Today, the CDC faced the fear of the pandemic with facts and evidence,” she said. “For the first time since the start of this pandemic, we have a rigorous, science-based roadmap that our members can use to fight for a safe reopening.”
The new guidance comes after Walensky said last week that schools can be reopened safely, even if teachers have not yet been vaccinated. The White House quickly distanced itself from the comment. Press secretary Jen Psaki said it was not an “official guideline” for the CDC.
President Joe Biden has made reopening schools in the country for face-to-face education one of his top priorities. In December, he promised to resume face-to-face teaching at most schools in the country in the first 100 days after taking office, but Biden did not define what a school “reopening” meant.
In January, he specified that the target is only valid for schools serving students up to the eighth grade. And earlier this week, the White House further clarified that schools will be considered open as long as they teach in person at least one day a week. Psaki said on Wednesday that the goal is part of the White House’s “bold and ambitious agenda”, adding that it is a floor the government hopes to overcome.
“The goal he set is to have most schools, that is, more than 50%, open by the 100th day of his presidency,” she said. “And that means a little teaching in the classroom. So, at least one day a week. Hopefully, it’s more.”
Face-to-face schooling was abruptly interrupted across the country in March, when schools started using remote education to protect students, teachers and parents from the coronavirus. But education experts and public health groups, including the World Health Organization, have warned of the lasting consequences of keeping students out of the classroom. Economists also warned of the impact on working fathers, especially mothers, who became unemployed in record numbers during the pandemic.
Former President Donald Trump called on governors and local officials to reopen schools for personal learning, saying in July that keeping schools closed is likely to cause “more deaths”. But under its administration, the CDC offered little guidance on how and when to reopen safely, saying that the decision should instead be made by local and state officials.
The issue has become controversial in the United States, with some saying that the risk of coronavirus to children is less than the consequences of missing school. Although children and young adults are generally less likely to become seriously ill and die from Covid-19, the risk is greater if the person has an underlying disease that compromises their immune system. More than 120 people under the age of 20 died of Covid-19 in the United States by September, according to the CDC.
Instead of clear federal guidance so far, state, local and school officials have set their own course on how and when to reopen schools. Data from Burbio, a service that monitors school opening plans, recently reported that almost 65% of elementary and high school students are already learning personally to some degree.
– CNBC’s Hannah Miao contributed to this report.