As students and teachers across the country prepared to head back
to school. The CDC is relaxing its covid 19 guidelines. It's a significant
shift in how the United States has approached the pandemic, Stephanie
Sai explained.
Judy, the latest guidance from the CDC prioritizes keeping kids in
class and relaxes covid prevention measures for people of all ages.
Here's some of what's changed. If exposed to covid 19. It's no longer
necessary to quarantine the CDC now says to wear a mask and get tested.
If you test positive, the C D. C recommends masking for 10 days,
but says isolation can end after Day five if symptoms are improving.
What's more than
The CDC also no longer recommends routine testing and K through 12
schools unless community transmission is high.
Not all health experts agree with the new CDC guidelines for more
I'm joined by Julia Richman. She's an assistant professor at Boston
University School of Public Health. She also leads the Covid 19 US
State policy database, which tracks how states have responded to
the pandemic. Julia Richman, Thank you so much for joining the news
hour, The CDC has pointed to falling case numbers and hospitalizations
as well as to the fact that a lot of Americans now have some protection
from Covid.
Either from the vaccine or having already gotten it. Do these new
CDC guidelines get it? Mostly right or mostly wrong in your view?
Thank you so much for having me into the pleasure to be here. All
right, So I think we should be looking to the CDC just set a high
bar on evidence based standards and standards that are equitable
and inclusive. And so I think these guidelines could really be strengthened.
We need leadership on helping people improve the use of all of the
tools that we have to reduce. Covid 19. What I would like to see
is more of an emphasis on vaccine delivery at schools.
Mike. Just about half of Children are vaccinated at this point that
we really need increased vaccination coverage to help reduce preventable,
severe disease in kids. We also see the vaccines alone are not enough
to reduce high transmission and schools are places we really value
their crowded indoor settings where we require students to go and
we want them to be safe for students, especially when they're surges.
So what We really want to see more of his more preparedness to reduce
the harms of surges, which will hit schools first and most because
they are crowded, indoor setting.
What that would look like, would be mask mandates that turn on at
the beginning of a surge right. What that would look like would also
be increasing that vaccination coverage and booster coverage before
the surge hit.
And then increases in testing and supplies as well as remote options
for people who are high risk when there is very high transmission,
some health experts say the new guidelines recognize that the best
place for Children is in the classroom and that this can be done
safely with acceptable levels of risk. Would you agree with that?
You know, I think it is important to keep schools open and safe,
so we really want to have them be healthy places.
Um, that leads students and caring about their own health and that
of one another and their families and their teachers. And so we see
that safety guidelines like Mask mandates have actually been a great
help in helping students stay in school and reducing student and
teacher absences. I and so having a plan in place to acknowledge
that the pandemic and its arms continue, but that we can mitigate
them with sensible strategies that are not all or nothing but
That really respond to big surges and prepare for them can really
help students stay in school in a way that has a lot less transmission
than the prior year. And they're still still are about on average
500 people dying a day of Covid 19 in the United States, which groups
continue to be the most vulnerable. And we're not just talking about
Children here they tend to be less vulnerable to severe disease.
Yeah, thank you for asking that question. 500 deaths a day is is
A lot of death. At one point, the federal government had talked about
setting a goal about 200 deaths a day.
And we expect that number of deaths per day to increase during the
school years. People go back into credit indoor settings as there
may be seasonal surges or surges of new variants. So I think that
that number is too high level to accept, and we see that there are
large disparities by race, ethnicity, income.
I and that people who are at high risk of spirit covid people who
are disabled are at elevated risk of death and other severe outcomes
due to Covid I. And so that's why it is important to take mitigation
step, um, like implementing mass bandied at the beginning of surges
to reduce the amount that covid spreads and reducing cases also reduces
hospitalizations and deaths. It also reduces disruption to education
and parents who are missing work because
As they are staying home with kids who are sick or because they themselves
become sex.
No overall. Do you feel that these new CDC guidelines are science
based, or do you think that there are other factors at play that
have changed the guidance? You know, I think we have to recognize
that public health is political, and they both science and politics
are reflected in these guidelines.
Um, and politics are part of the reason that the United States has
not had a stronger response to Covid. The United States is number
one in the death rate for Delta and omicron relative to other high
income countries, so that really suggests that we need to do better.
Um, what is in the guidelines is an opportunity for students for
schools and leaders to lead on better. We need layered mitigation.
We need much better vaccination coverage for for kids and for educators
and for
Families.
We also need mask mandates and surges and surveillance testing and
searches. Julia Richman with Boston University School of Public Health,
Thank you for joining the news hour with your perspective. Thank