Here's how schools should handle a Covid-19 outbreak

 

Getting children back in classrooms has been a top priority for the United States, but less than a month into the new school year, we have already seen outbreaks reported.   Drew Charter School in Atlanta kicked off the new school year last week and already has reported an outbreak in which nine students and five staff tested positive for Covid-19, and more than 100 students at the school are in quarantine, Peter McKnight, the head of the school, said Friday. Only one of the five staff members who tested positive had been vaccinated, he said.  But what should schools do when faced with an outbreak?   Institutions must respond quickly – with contact tracing, testing, quarantining people who were exposed to the virus and isolating people with infections, Dr. William Schaffner, a professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told CNN.   "The best way to contain outbreaks that do occur in schools is to detect them early so that you can stop the outbreak before it becomes widespread. The goal is to prevent disease with the least disruption to education," Dr. Andrew Pavia, chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Utah, wrote in an email to CNN.   If an outbreak is confined to a classroom or team, people who had "significant exposure" initially may quarantine but "that does not necessarily include everyone if masks are worn at all times and there is adequate distancing which limits exposure," Pavia wrote.