New CDC Guidance for Reopening Schools Creates Color-Coded Risk Scale | US News
New CDC Guidance for Reopening Schools Creates Color-Coded Risk Scale
One early analysis of the CDC guidance suggests nearly 90% of people in the U.S. live in counties that fall into the two highest of five risk categories for reopening schools.
THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE Control and Prevention issued new guidance Wednesday for schools seeking to open for in-person learning, using various community infection rates and school safety thresholds to create a five-tiered color-coded risk scale.
The guidance, which state education chiefs, school district superintendents, principals, teachers and others have been clamoring for since the spring, comes more than a month after millions of children, mostly across the South, returned to schools – some in districts with positive rates upward of 20% and without requirements for students and staff to wear masks.
According to at least one early analysis of the CDC guidance, nearly 90% of people in the U.S. live in counties that fall into the two highest risk categories for reopening schools. The release of the guidance, which recommends aggressive thresholds, reignited a wave of criticism over the lack of federal guidance and left many wondering how many schools would have decided not to reopen for in-person learning if officials had this guidance earlier
"There is no easy answer or single indicator," the CDC guidance states. "Many variables must be considered."
CDC recommends the use of three indicators, including two measures of community burden – the number of new cases per 100,000 persons within the last 14 days and the percentage of tests that are positive during the last 14 days – as well as one self-assessed measure of schools' ability to adhere to various mitigation strategies.
Those strategies could be things like the correct use of masks, social distancing, hand hygiene, cleaning and disinfection and contact tracing in collaboration with local health departments.
"These key mitigation strategies should be implemented to the largest extent possible," the CDC guidance states. "When mitigation strategies are consistently and correctly used, the risk of spread within the school environment and the surrounding community is decreased."
The guidance also emphasizes that local officials take additional factors into consideration, such as the extent to which mitigation strategies are adhered to in the broader community.
If a school districts falls into the "medium," "higher" or "highest" risk of transmission categories, it CONTINUE READING: New CDC Guidance for Reopening Schools Creates Color-Coded Risk Scale | US News
