How Horry schools will handle COVID contact tracing and quarantining students this year
As Horry County Schools (HCS) gears up to return full-time in-person for another school year in the coronavirus pandemic, the district is prepping its plans on reporting cases to the public and how to decide which students need to quarantine.
Classes will return in full force next week after a year of varying levels of in-person and virtual learning left teachers exhausted and students missing out on traditional learning. The district is bringing students back to the building full-time, with a completely virtual option for those who choose it.
But the pandemic is dragging on, and the threat of the delta variant is worrying health experts nationally and locally, raising questions about how the district will handle safety precautions and reporting any potential outbreaks to the public.
How will Horry County Schools keep track of COVID-19 cases?
The district will fire up its coronavirus dashboard next week, at the start of the school year. Parents and the public can access the dashboard on the district’s website to see how many student cases, staff cases and staff in quarantine have been reported at each school, Chief Officer of Student Services Velna Allen said at a school board meeting Monday.
The dashboard will be updated once daily, though that could “easily” increase to twice per day, mirroring last year’s pattern, if cases increase, Allen said.
Confirmed coronavirus cases are reported to the district when a staff member or student calls in sick and reports the case, and the district encourages anyone with symptoms of COVID-19 to get tested, though it can’t require testing. The district is also looking to establish testing sites, pending approval.
How does the district tell who needs to quarantine?
As soon as a COVID-19 case is reported to the district, contact tracing begins immediately, as outlined in HCS’ plan to safely return to in-person learning.
Contact tracing consists of documenting who was in contact with the infected person, including how close they were and for how long they were in contact. School nurses and other staff question students to find out who needs to quarantine after exposure to COVID-19. They ask about who they made contact with at school, but also on the bus and if anyone visited their house recently.
“Contact tracing begins immediately,” Allen said. “Who have you been in contact with? What location? ... Have you been in contact? Where were you on this day?”
Are too many students quarantined?
Since athletics and other extracurricular activities started up again this summer, seven coronavirus cases have been reported, landing several high school football teams and cheer squads in quarantine and throwing off their schedule for the start of the season. Though only seven positive cases were reported, 222 students were placed in quarantine, Allen said.
After hearing that, school board member Helen Smith, who represents Carolina Forest, Socastee and St. James, asked if the district was quarantining too many students who didn’t need to be, considering 215 of the quarantined members this summer didn’t have the virus.
“That’s the thing, I can’t get in my head, that we’re gonna punish 14, we’re gonna punish 20 kids for one kid who gets it,” Smith said. “And they don’t ever get it. But they couldn’t do anything, they couldn’t participate.”
Allen said the district is following the guidelines from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, and quarantining kids who are exposed is the best way to avoid outbreaks in the schools.
“Sometimes, I’ll be honest with you, we probably quarantined more students than we have to,” Allen said. “Following what DHEC has told us to do, you always want to be safe ... If there’s any doubt, we go ahead and quarantine that individual.”
Do vaccinated kids need to quarantine if they’re exposed?
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been approved for children as young as 12, so part of HCS’ student population is eligible to receive the vaccine. If students who have been fully vaccinated and are two weeks or more past their second dose, they don’t need to quarantine if they’re not showing symptoms, Allen said, citing guidance from DHEC and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There’s no way to know currently how many HCS students or staff members have been vaccinated. The coronavirus vaccine isn’t required for public schools, and the district can’t ask students or parents about their vaccination status. But Allen said it often comes up voluntarily when school staff informs the families that students don’t need to quarantine if they can show proof they’re vaccinated and asymptomatic.
This story was originally published August 10, 2021 at 12:40 PM.
