CDC updates Covid-19 prevention guidance for schools

CDC updates Covid-19 prevention guidance for schools   The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance for Covid-19 prevention in K-12 schools last week, aligning the recommendations with the agency's recently updated Covid-19 quarantine and isolation guidelines for the general public. It also expands its recommendations for screening testing and urges canceling or going virtual with some extracurricular and sports activities in order to preserve in-person learning. The CDC's new recommendations say children who have not been fully vaccinated and are exposed to the coronavirus should quarantine for at least five days after their last close contact with a person who has Covid-19. Adults who are not vaccinated against Covid-19 or who have not received a booster shot are advised to follow this recommendation, too.   Separate from the CDC's guidance, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and PolicyLab released Covid-19 school guidance aimed at preserving in-person schooling, saying that "outweighs the risks of infection to children and school staff at this stage of the pandemic."   The guidance aligns with the CDC on several points, including emphasizing that people with symptoms stay home, but it also urges discontinuing required weekly testing for people without symptoms and supports "mask to stay"-style policies that allow people exposed to Covid-19 to remain in class. "With limited access to testing and schools overwhelmed with contact tracing and required testing solutions that are no longer feasible or sustainable, the time has come to pivot towards solutions that prioritize normalization of in-school education alongside practical safety measures that can manage the worst of this resurgence," Dr. Jeffrey Gerber, associate director for inpatient research activities for the Center for Pediatric Clinical Effectiveness at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and co-author of the guidance, wrote in a blog post.   "Failure to pivot quickly risks closure of many under-resourced schools, which have been disproportionately impacted by staffing shortages, and whose communities have had more limited access to testing," Gerber said.   Answers to your some of your questions this week: If you caught Covid-19 over the holidays, what should you do now? What’s safe for kids to do, with Omicron spreading quickly? Is it OK to use throat swabs for home Covid-19 tests? Should you report the results of a positive at-home test? What is “flurona,” and how serious is it?