COVID19 Profile picture
21 Aug, 5 tweets, 2 min read
A few school districts in SoCal has been open for full in person since mid-summer. At one, the district office is doing ~600 tests/day (antigen & PCR) for staff and students. Dashboard shows 250+ communicable cases on campus in 4 wks since reopening for full in person learning.
Following CDPH guidance schools are targeting close contacts for quarantine. With so many cases, principals, nurses, teachers, secretaries must spend most of the day doing COVID related work - collecting close contacts, making notifications, going over quarantine options (3!).
Is there transmission? K-12 outbreaks are reported without naming schools. CA schools require universal masking & have good (unwieldy)guidance. Turning school staff into contact tracers/case investigators not sustainable. Data w/a couple of districts open sandiegocounty.gov/content/dam/sd…
Schools need to hire people w/experience to help schools with tracing, testing (some are doing on site), & to liaison w/ public health. Many schools won't be able to manage what is necessary in Delta surge to keep schools open for full in person learning.
What do the school COVID dashboards capture? Communicable cases on campus - the vast majority of those cases acquired the infection in the community. Outbreaks capture transmission in the setting (a classroom for example).

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with COVID19

COVID19 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @V2019N

4 Sep
From @latimes based on interview with Karen Gallardo a respiratory therapist at a hospital in Ventura County, CA
#GetVaccinated #WearAMask or what to expect if you have severe COVID-19
Read 7 tweets
2 Sep
Pediatrician friend recommends this link if you want info on masks for kids #BacktoSchool2021
Please share
“We have a huge problem in the US, and that is that here is no general population standard for face masks,” said Collins. “Now we have this problem, that we need kids with better masks, and we have no standard.”
medscape.com/viewarticle/95…
Based on his testing he recommends that parents try to find a KF94 mask, from South Korea. He said their performance is nearly equivalent to an N95, and he’s run into fewer instances of counterfeits with these kinds of masks.
Read 4 tweets
28 Aug
California K-12 CDPH trying very hard to keep kids in person learning on campus, even after exposure. One of their quarantine options requires frequent testing (antigen if asymptomatic) as in 4 tests in 10 days. The state is helping schools set up testing sites.
If you don't want to get your kid tested 4x in 10 days you can opt to do a home quarantine for 10 days, return on day 11. Testing encouraged but not required. There is also a third option - proof of negative test on d6 or d7 after exposure, return on day 8 to campus.
Is it working? Here in SoCal many districts opened in August. A few opened in mid-July. There is lots of community spread so LOTS of communicable cases on campus. Some districts have hundreds of kids communicable on campus since they opened and thousands doing these quarantines.
Read 5 tweets
6 Aug
Some schools have already opened for full in person learning.
Universal masking in vaccinated and unvaccinated should be required.
The school guidance for my state, CA, is convoluted - will be incredibly hard for school district without dedicated Covid mitigation staff.
Schools should consider hiring someone to track cases and provide guidance to principals, nurses and other administrative staff. Opening in a surge with a highly transmissible variant is trickly.
Schools in CA may be overwhelmed with positive cases on campus in first weeks. Must consider staffing with competent experienced people to provide guidance. HIre people with contact tracing / case investigation experience NOW. The CDPH guidance for quarantines is complicated.
Read 4 tweets
11 Jul
From 5/20 - Basics of case investigation/contact tracing. Caser/tracer calls to ask positive case how they’re feeling, symptoms they have & for names & numbers of anyone they’ve had close contact within 48 hours of developing symptoms or pos test (asx).
seattletimes.com/seattle-news/h…
Close contacts (anyone within 6' of case for 15 min or more will be asked to quarantine for 10 to 14 days.

Positive case will be asked to isolate for 10 days from onset of symptoms or positive test if asymptomatic. Symptoms improving & no fever for 24 hrs, case released d 11
Close contacts encouraged to get tested 5-7 days after last exposure to positive case or immediately if they develop symptoms.

Family members who live w/positive case should get test. Household spread common. Negative household members are close contacts & quarantine 10-14 days
Read 4 tweets
9 Jul
#BREAKING
The @CDCgov plans to release new guidance on Friday urging schools to fully reopen in the fall, even if they cannot take all of the steps the agency recommends to curb the spread of the coronavirus
nytimes.com/2021/07/09/hea…
The agency will also call on school districts to use local health data to guide decisions about when to tighten or relax prevention measures like mask wearing and physical distancing.
New guidance will continue to recommend students be spaced at least 3' apart, but with a new caveat: If maintaining such spacing would prevent schools from fully reopening, they could rely on a combination of other strategies like indoor masking, testing & enhanced ventilation.
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(