CDC guidelines suggest only one county in Massachusetts should fully reopen schools
However, some local health experts say the federal standards are too cautious.
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Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration is moving to force school districts in Massachusetts to resume full-time in-person learning for elementary students next month.
But according to guidelines released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the vast majority of the state isn’t ready.
An analysis released Tuesday by The New York Times found that only one county in Massachusetts — rural Franklin County — has low enough COVID-19 incidence rates to meet the CDC’s criteria for fully reopening elementary schools. Based on the CDC’s school reopening guidelines, elementary schools in the rest of the state should be in a hybrid learning model.
Franklin County was also the only Massachusetts county with low enough COVID-19 rates for full-time in-person instruction in middle and high schools, based on the CDC’s guidelines. Berkshire County had low enough rates for hybrid learning in middle and high schools, while every other county in Massachusetts should be fully remote for older students, according to the analysis.
In fact, according to the Times, just 4 percent of the country’s students live in counties where COVID-19 transmission is low enough for full-time in-person learning, despite the dramatic national decline in cases over the last two months. As the color-coded map illustrates, hardly any of the counties with the green light to fully reopen schools are on the more densely populated East Coast.
For middle and high schools, the number of cases and test-positivity rates suggest fully remote learning in large portions of the country. https://t.co/wSoutN3RkQ pic.twitter.com/pcjJMiSbCm
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 2, 2021
The guidelines recommend that schools reopen five days a week only in communities with fewer than 50 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in a week and a seven-day positive test rate of less than 8 percent, unless regular testing is offered.
Some advocates and public health experts criticized those standards after they were released last month, arguing that the use of the community spread metrics would make it too hard to reopen schools. However, the CDC says the guidelines are not meant to prevent schools from reopening. And indeed, some large districts, including Boston, have moved forward with gradual reopening plans.
Baker’s administration announced last week that it would move to effectively mandate that all public school districts in Massachusetts return to in-person instruction five days a week this spring, beginning with elementary students in April (though parents would still be able to keep their children remote, and some schools could ask for exemptions).
Asked about the CDC’s guidelines, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education pointed to a letter sent Sunday by 300 local physicians arguing that the state’s school reopening guidelines were “more appropriate to guide Massachusetts, particularly with regard to distancing between students and that opening schools to in-person learning should reflect within school transmission rather than strictly community COVID prevalence rates.” While the CDC has recommended maintaining six feet of physical distance between individuals, DESE’s guidelines follow the World Health Organization’s three-foot guidance.
In their letter, the group of physicians says the CDC’s guidelines overlook measures that Massachusetts has taken to prevent in-school transmission, from “consistent mandated” face-covering use to the launch of a recent pool testing program that has been adopted by 1,000 schools. As a result, they said that instances of in-school spread of COVID-19 in Massachusetts have been “exceedingly rare,” even with “community prevalence rates significantly higher than those set forth by CDC.”
“We urge DESE to continue to adopt policies and regulations consistent with an approach that is likely to lead to return of children to school this spring and fall,” the letter said, noting that the academic and mental health risks of students not being in school were “dramatic.”
As of last week, state officials said that 20 percent of public school districts in Massachusetts — accounting for 400,000 students, or nearly half the state’s public school enrollment — were in fully-remote models.
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