Buffalo, NY (WBEN) The Erie County Health Department says it will adopt school guidance set forth by the New York State Health Department for K-12 schools beginning Monday. The county says it is doing this to bring consistency between school districts in western New York.
"The COVID-19 school guidance that our department issued remains a strong document with practical, common sense recommendations for schools to maintain safe and healthy operations," says Commissioner of Health Dr. Gale Burstein.
"We hope that as school leaders look to NYSDOH guidance as a baseline, they maintain measures in our guidance document, especially since children's health is at stake. State regulations for mask wearing in school settings and testing of school staff who cannot provide documentation of COVID-19 vaccination status remain unchanged. Our department has gone above and beyond the minimum to protect students in school settings," adds Burstein.
"That is seen in the fact that we have a dedicated COVID-19 school team in our office of epidemiology – the only one that we know of in all of New York State. Additionally, we extended an offer for a test-through-quarantine option to a small set of influential district leaders, as a way to moderate the impact of quarantine. Unfortunately, that offer was dismissed by the district leaders."
The county health department says it is coordinating COVID-19 screening testing, which has started in many districts and schools. It says the COVID-19 proximate testing program, where students and staff in the same class or extracurricular as a case while contagious are tested, will start in early October.
"Our limited data since the school year's start show that COVID-19 cases among youth and adolescents are driving our overall increase in countywide cases," explains Burstein.
"We fully expect to see more COVID-19 cases among students and school staff, and continued clusters of cases within classrooms, buses and sports teams. When those cases and outbreaks happen, we will direct our resources into appropriate contact tracing with support from schools and based on NYSDOH guidance."
The contact tracing standard for students in school settings defines a close contact as an individual within three feet of a COVID-19 case for 15 cumulative minutes or more within a 24-hour period while that case was infectious.
Burstein says COVID-19 cases among Erie County k-12 students and school staff are markedly higher than at this time last year.
