Union County lobbies to end quarantines amid COVID ‘rollercoaster’ for schools
Union County officials want North Carolina leaders to stop requiring public schools participate in COVID-19 contact tracing and end mandatory student quarantine periods as currently ordered.
Union County’s commissioners and Board of Education approved the joint resolution at separate meetings this week — the resolution included input from Union County Public Health Director Dennis Joyner and County Manager Mark Watson. Officials cite the burden of contact tracing on public health workers and school nurses, and the “substantial costs” of children having to sporadically quarantine.
Both county commissioners and school board members also said additional tools, like vaccinations, are now available to help keep COVID-19 infection rates low.
“I support this for the children who time and time again were quarantined and never had COVID-19,” county commissioner Stony Rushing said. “These families, these children — the future of this county — they’re the ones who are suffering.
The district’s school board has bucked various recommendations and best practices when it comes to handling the pandemic since school began in August. The district hasn’t mandated masks this school year, and was at odds with Joyner in September when a board vote effectively curtailed widespread quarantining of students — a precaution health experts recommended in order cut down on possible coronavirus outbreaks in schools, where many children were not yet able to be vaccinated.
That decision led to Joyner threatening legal action against the district and prompted outcry both from parents and at the highest level of public health administration in North Carolina, with state Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen telling school board members the district could face legal action if the policy were not rescinded.
Ultimately, the school board and Union County health department came to an agreement on contact tracing and quarantines.
Now, Union County’s leaders are in agreement that the state should consider adjusting protocols.
“We’re going to have to live with COVID,” Joyner told the school board Tuesday night after giving an update on cases in the county. “Over time we’re going to see some of these peaks and valleys. We’re going to be on a roller coaster to some extent. ... We have to adjust ourselves to living with this.”
Watson will send the resolution to other counties around the state and school board members will do the same in hopes for widespread support. According to the resolution, Union County is requesting the NC Department of Health and Human Services “take whatever actions are necessary to end the practice of contact tracing and quarantining of students” on or before Jan. 19, 2022.
“I just hope we all and the state learn a strong lesson from this and our legislators get behind meaningful legislation to ensure that we never have to go through this again,” Rushing said. He continued that decisions can’t be made “based on rumor, speculation and peoples’ fears.”
The resolution points to the impacts of contact tracing and quarantining has on children who don’t have COVID-19: “The data and evidence consistently and strongly demonstrate that students who are sporadically, suddenly, and repeatedly excluded from school due to quarantine requirements have decreased academic performance, increased behavioral issues, and suffer emotional and psychological effects from the isolation and removal from peers.”
Union County officials also said the practice of quarantining children and excluding them from in-person student learning “imposes substantial costs on employers, special burdens on parents,” especially working parents.
On Tuesday, Catie Armstrong, of the Office of Communications of NC DHHS, told the Observer that “we all share the same goal of keeping our students, teachers and staff in the classroom where children learn best.”
“There are many preventive strategies that can be utilized by schools and exemptions to quarantine to limit the amount of quarantine of students and staff,” she said. “Excluding students from school should be a last resort.”
For example, in districts were masks are required, state quarantine protocols say no isolation or exclusion from school is necessary due to suspected exposure — unless someone develops symptoms or tests positive for the virus.
Armstrong said the guidance and recommendations in the StrongSchoolsNC Public Health Toolkit, which was updated July 1, are designed to safely keep students in classrooms.
“This joint resolution does not diminish the importance of caring for all children who are sick whether from COVID-19, flu or any other communicable disease,” the county’s statement reads.
Officials said it’s still important to follow isolation protocols for symptomatic individuals and those who test positive for COVID-19.
