CDC Screening Updates

Halloween is over, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and Christmas will be here before we know it. Although the fall/winter seasons tend to bring a sense of nostalgia to our community, lets not forget that ‘tis the flu season as well.  With the flu season upon us and the threat of a COVID-19 resurgence looming over our shoulders, it is incredibly important to make sure our families, schools, and communities are safe and protected. 

The United States has now surpassed over 11 million COVID-19 cases and we have just begun our journey into this holiday/winter/flu season. We should begin to look into ramping up our prevention efforts and ensure that we enforce all of the CDC recommendations and continuously monitor for any updates. 

Let’s take a look at the recent CDC updates according to the cdc.gov site:

Screening K-12 Students for Symptoms of COVID-19:

November 3rd update 

Flowchart and scenarios to provide clarity on what to do when a student has COVID-19 symptoms.

COVID-19 Screening Flowchart

Home Based Screening Template

School Assessment of Student’s Risk of Exposure Template

The CDC has also provided a few scenarios to further help schools identify how to assess risk and when to take action. These scenarios were created in hopes to provide clarity when school officials are needing to make decisions about the safety of their staff and students. 

Let’s take a look at the following 3 scenarios:

Scenario 1: 

Symptomatic student with no increased risk of exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19. (The student has had NO close contact with a person that has been confirmed with COVID-19 AND the student does NOT attend a school in an area where there is moderate to high risk of transmission.)

ACTION: 

“This student should stay home until his or her symptoms have improved according to existing school policies, typically, at least 24 hours after they no longer has a fever (temperature of 100.4 or higher) or signs of a fever (chills, feeling very warm, flushed appearance, or sweating) without the use of fever-reducing medicine (e.g., acetaminophen or ibuprofen).”

Scenario 2: 

Symptomatic student who has had close contact with a person infected with COVID-19. (Close contact is described as being within 6 feet for a total of 15 minutes or more.)

ACTION(S):

“If student receives a positive COVID-19 test result or if they have not been tested, they should not attend school and should isolate until

  • At least 10 days since symptoms first appeared AND
  • 24 hours with no fever without fever reducing medication AND
  • Other symptoms of COVID-19 are improving”

OR

“If the student receives a negative test result or are not tested they must still complete the full 14-day quarantine from the last contact with an infected person before returning to school because they can still develop COVID-19 for up to 14 days after being exposed.”

Scenario 3: 

Symptomatic student with no known close contact with an infected person BUT attends a school with moderate to high risk of COVID-19 transmission.

ACTION(S):

“If student receives a positive COVID-19 test result or if they have not been tested, they should not attend school and should isolate until

  • At least 10 days since symptoms first appeared AND
  • 24 hours with no fever without fever reducing medication AND
  • Other symptoms of COVID-19 are improving”

OR

“If the student receives a negative test result, the symptoms are most likely from another infection. Because this student DOES NOT have a known close contact, they may return to school once symptoms have improved according to existing school policies such as those described in Scenario 1.”

The state of our reality is continuously changing and so should the way we respond to these changes. The more we learn about the novel coronavirus, the more knowledge we get to equip ourselves with and in turn help protect ourselves and our community. With this in mind, the CDC is constantly making updates to their coronavirus resources page. Visit https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/whats-new-all for all updates and revisions to the coronavirus resources guide.