Muscogee County School District changes quarantine rules again. What you need to know
Students in the Muscogee County School District will see a change to their quarantining protocols starting Wednesday, the second change this school year, as COVID-19 cases continue to drop.
Effective Wednesday, students within close contact to someone who tests positive for COVID-19 in school are no longer required to be quarantined from in-person classroom instruction, as long as the close contact happened in a classroom setting and everyone involved in the close contact was wearing a mask covering their nose and mouth.
MCSD risk management director Tracy Fox announced the change to the COVID-19 mitigation protocol at the school board’s monthly meeting Monday night.
The revision doesn’t apply to employees, based on the Department of Public Health’s recommendation, according to the MCSD presentation.
This is the second change to MCSD’s quarantine policy this school year. In August, after the first week of classes, the district cut in half the distance to determine whether a student or employee has been a close contact with a person infected by the coronavirus.
The revised protocol is triggered only if the people involved were wearing masks, as the district requires for everyone in MCSD buildings.
In that August letter to parents and guardians, MCSD said, “A person is considered to be in close contact of a positive person if they are within 3 feet for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period when masks are worn. If masks were not worn, close contact is identified as 6 feet within the positive person.”
The change has helped MCSD reduce the number of students and employees required to leave district property and quarantine at home.
During the first week of this school year, from Aug. 9-13, MCSD received reports of 89 positive COVID-19 tests (65 students, 24 employees), requiring 591 people to isolate or quarantine (551 students, 40 employees).
Those numbers spiked to a high of 201 COVID cases (174 students, 27 employees) Aug. 23-27, requiring 1,245 people (1,197 students, 48 employees) to isolate or quarantine.
Since then, COVID-19 cases have dropped eight straight weeks to 26 COVID cases (20 students, six employees) Oct. 18-22, requiring 72 people (66 students, six employees) to isolate or quarantine, according to MCSD’s news releases.
Other school districts in the Columbus area also have seen their COVID cases decline, prompting some to change their mask policy from mandatory to optional. Harris County joined Troup and Lee counties Friday in announcing this revision. Columbus private schools Brookstone and St. Anne-Pacelli also have relaxed their mask policy from mandatory to optional.
