PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) PolicyLab has played a key role in crafting school COVID-19 policies, and its latest recommendation is modifying protocols that classrooms have become accustomed to.
The updated guidance goes a bit further than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A consensus from both PolicyLab and CHOP clinical leadership suggests dialing back some of the stricter rules.
“I think it was really important — I think there’s a state of panic out there, given what’s going on — that our hospital stepped forward to try to change the perception out there for most people,” said CHOP PolicyLab Director Dr. David Rubin.
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He said we need to hit the reset button, so to speak, on how we think about COVID-19 exposures. Last year, pre-vaccine, we took as many steps as possible to prevent any exposure among an unvaccinated population. Now if there’s an exposure, prevention is impractical.
“We’re all exposed,” he said. “I don’t think we can contact-trace anymore. I think we’re all exposed — I think we’ve learned that very quickly in the last couple of weeks.”
Rubin said one of the primary focuses is to keep kids in classrooms by what’s called modified quarantine, or mask to stay, where anyone who is exposed can continue to go to school as long as they wear a mask at all times and they stay home if they develop any symptoms.
The updated guidance says to continue indoor masking requirements while case counts are high, and continue to urge students and staff to stay home if they have respiratory illness symptoms. However, it says to stop required weekly testing of teachers, students or staff with no symptoms.
“We no longer, as some of my colleagues would say, need to chase mild disease,” Rubin explained. “When you simplify it that way, it starts to take the fear out of this and people recognize, ‘Oh, we’ve been through this before in influenza seasons and other seasons. It’s just that we’ve been traumatized for the last two years.’ ”
Vaccines and boosters are still encouraged for everyone.