With more than 25% of students out of school, Horry will shorten COVID quarantine times
With more than 25% of its students quarantining due to having close contact with a COVID-19-positive person, Horry County Schools on Friday announced that the district will shorten the amount of time a student or staff member has to be out of school.
Rather than staying out of school for 14 or 24 days, students and staff will now only have to stay out of school between seven and 20 days, HCS said in a news release Friday.
The announcement comes as more than 1,000 students and nearly 100 staff have tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of the school year three weeks ago. More than 12,400 students and 300 staff are currently quarantining due to having close contact with a COVID-19-positive person.
The new quarantine rules will take affect Tuesday HCS said.
The new rules, which HCS said were approved by the South Carolina Dept. of Health and Environmental Control, are as follows:
- Students or staff who have been in “close contact” with a COVID-19-positive person must quarantine for 10 days, and must monitor symptoms daily. If the person has no symptoms after 10 days, they may return to school.
- Students or staff may return to school after seven days if they test negative for COVID-19 via an antigen or PCR/molecular test, taken on the fifth day or later. Negative test results must be reported to the school.
- For students or staff who have a “household contact” positive with COVID-19, they must quarantine for 20 days, and monitor symptoms daily. The person may return to school after 20 days if they have no symptoms.
- Students or staff may return to school after 17 days if they test negative for COVID-19 via an antigen PCR/molecular test, taken on the 15th day or later. The negative results must be reported to the school.
HCS said it will not accept negative test results from over-the-counter COVID-19 tests. Negative test results can be emailed to negativeCOVID19testresults@horrycountyschools.net or be submitted at the school.
HCS also advised that students and staff who are fully vaccinated or who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the past three months and have no symptoms do not have to quarantine.
If a student or staff member tests positive for COVID-19, they must isolate for 10 days, HCS said, and cannot shorten their time out of school.
“The student/staff members may return to school or work on the 11th day provided they are asymptomatic,” HCS said.
Currently, five schools in the HCS district are operating remotely with distance learning due to the spread of COVID-19. Those schools are Whittemore Park Middle School, Ten Oaks Middle School, Loris Middle School, Conway High School and Aynor Middle School.
Aynor Middle School may return to in-person learning after next week, and the rest may return to in-person learning between Wednesday and Friday next week.
To date, 830 students and staff have tested positive for COVID-19. Last school year, nearly 2,600 students and staff tested positive.
More information about the spread of COVID-19 in Horry County Schools can be found here. More information about student quarantine policies can be found here, and more information about staff quarantine policies can be found here.
This story was originally published September 3, 2021 at 5:52 PM with the headline "With more than 25% of students out of school, Horry will shorten COVID quarantine times."
