As most of you are probably aware, last week, the CDC issued new guidance on length of quarantine for individuals meeting the definition of a direct contact to a COVID positive individual. The definition of a direct contact still remains “someone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more in a 24-hour period starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to test specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated.”
While the CDC still endorses a 14-day quarantine period as the best defense for maximum transmission safety, the CDC’s new guidance allows for a shortened quarantine period with monitoring for symptoms still lasting through the 14 days. The Miles City Unified School District board of trustees met for their regular board meeting on December 8th and adopted the following new quarantine protocol: Students and staff determined to be a direct contact to a COVID positive individual must quarantine for 10 full days and can return to school after the 10th full day if they are symptom free. They should continue monitoring for symptoms for an additional 4 days. At this time, the District will not be considering reduced quarantines of 7 days with a negative test result. While we are hopeful that Custer County will at some point be able to administer rapid testing that would allow quarantines to be reduced to 7 days, with the County’s current testing sites, testing days, and varying lengths of time between testing and receiving results, the reduced 10-day quarantine has been determined to be the best new course of action for the District. As always, we look forward to the day when quarantining will be a past practice. Until then, we appreciate your continued support as we do our best to keep our students and staff safe and our school doors open. We wish all our District families health and safety in the days and months ahead. Meghan Brown Superintendent Miles City Unified School District |
Updates & NoticesImportant notices and updates related to the Miles City Unified School District's COVID-19 Response Plan will be posted here. Archives
January 2022
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