The updated CDC guidance continues to recommend “strategies for everyday operations” or actions schools can take every day to prevent the spread of infectious disease, including the virus that causes COVID-19. Masks continue to be federally required in health care settings and for health care personnel, including school nurse offices. The following chart summarizes masking and testing recommendations at the three Community Levels. Schools should also consider implementing screening testing for high-risk activities, such as indoor sports and extracurricular activities, when students are returning from breaks, and for those serving students who are at high risk for getting very sick with COVID-19. In all Community Levels, staff and students with COVID-19-like symptoms or a positive test, should wear a mask around others. When communities are at a “high” level, the CDC recommends universal indoor masking as masks are critical to keeping classrooms open for in-person learning. Community levels can help schools and local health departments, as well as individuals, make decisions based on their local context and their unique needs. The CDC school guidance aligns with Community Levels for recommendations for masking and testing for high-risk activities (e.g., close contact sports or band) or during key times in the year (e.g., prom or return from breaks). These prevention measures can reduce that strain and avoid crisis. Rather than focusing on eliminating all virus transmission, the CDC recommends prevention measures, such as masks, when the level of severe disease in communities has the potential to overwhelm the health care system. This approach focuses recommendations on minimizing severe disease, limiting strain on the health care system, and enabling those at highest risk to protect themselves against infection and severe disease. On February 25, 2022, the CDC released a new framework to monitor the level of COVID-19 in communities that includes hospitalizations, hospital capacity, and cases. Schools should promote equitable access to vaccination. Not only does it provide individual-level protection, but high vaccination coverage reduces the burden of COVID-19 on people, schools, health care systems, and communities. People who are up to date with COVID-19 vaccines are at low risk of severe infection, hospitalization, and death. Vaccination is currently the leading public health prevention strategy to prevent adverse outcomes related to COVID-19. Schools must continue to provide remote learning to any student who is under isolation for COVID-19 based on the State Superintendent’s Remote Learning Declaration. Schools also are encouraged to follow the CDC’s best practices for all infectious diseases to keep students home if ill and use testing to confirm or rule out COVID-19 and other infection. IDPH and ISBE strongly encourage schools to follow the CDC’s operational guidance on best practices and the recommendations of their local health department on isolation for confirmed and probable cases. Schools and local health departments should exercise their longstanding authority, including as described in the Communicable Disease Code and according to schools’ infectious disease policies, to address all infectious disease cases among students and staff. This updated guidance supersedes all prior COVID-19 school guidance documents and applies to public and nonpublic schools that serve students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12 (pre-K-12). The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) have updated this joint summary, fully adopting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Operational Guidance for K-12 Schools and Early Care and Education Programs to Support Safe In-Person Learning (updated as of August 11, 2022).
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