Health directors ask state to move from ‘pandemic to endemic’ status
Changes to COVID protocols and guidance — ranging from lifting school mask mandates to new rules about school quarantining — have occurred in rapid succession in the past few days.
On Feb. 10, two days after the board of education voted to lift school mask mandates, Dare County school families received this email from district with new guidance for when students need to stay out of school.
“This afternoon, the NC Department of Health and Human Services released an update to the StrongSchoolsNC Public Health Toolkit. According to the new guidance, contact tracing in K-12 schools is no longer recommended or required by local public health. Students will no longer be excluded from school as long as they remain symptom-free. The implementation is scheduled to go into effect state-wide on Feb. 21 to allow time for school districts to make changes in policies.
Dare County Schools has been following the toolkit [and] with the support of our local health director, Dr. Sheila Davies, we will be implementing these changes effective immediately.
It is important to note that the following protocols still remain in effect:
- Masks are required on all school buses per federal mandate.
- Individuals who test positive or have symptoms will still be excluded from school for 5 days and be required to wear a mask on days 6-10 after returning to school.
In an indication of the growing momentum for these changes, on Feb. 2, the Health Directors in the Northeastern North Carolina Partnership for Public Health, which represents 16 counties, sent a letter to North Carolina Secretary of Health and Human Services Kody Kinsley. The letter asked for a “prompt transition from pandemic to endemic status in our COVID-19 response.”
In particular, the directors requested that asked such a response move away from “universal case investigation and contract tracing, including school age children…We do not consider the schools a high-risk population.”
