Though it seems that the worst of the pandemic is thankfully behind us, as students across North America return to schools, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released updates to its COVID-19 school recommendations to help schools ensure they offer the safest environment possible.
The recommendations for safe in-person learning for K–12 schools and early care and education programs have undergone a few changes ahead of the fall term of 2022.
For a start, several guidelines have been removed, including:
- The recommendation to cohort
- The recommendation to quarantine, except in high-risk congregate settings
- Information about “Test to Stay.”
Replacing those COVID-19 school recommendations are newer, detailed information about wearing masks, managing cases and exposures, and responding to outbreaks.
The CDC also changed its recommendation to conduct screening testing to focus on high-risk activities during high COVID-19 community level or in response to an outbreak.
Amid those changes, many day-to-day strategies have been reinforced by the CDC, including continued COVID-19 recommendations regarding good air quality and ventilation, proper hand hygiene, and adequate cleaning and disinfecting.
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While this guidance has been written specifically with COVID-19 in mind, the CDC reminds school facilitators that this advice can also help stop the spread of other infectious diseases, such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and norovirus, while generally supporting overall healthier learning environments.
