Dare student quarantine guidance changes noted

Published 11:25 am Saturday, October 9, 2021

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On Oct. 5, 2021, Sheila Davies, health director for Dare County, sent a memorandum to John Farrelly, superintendent of Dare County Schools.

The memorandum is titled “Quarantine Guidance Changes.”

Effective immediately, the “quarantine exemption for students when masks are worn appropriately and consistently now applies to adults in the school setting.”

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North Carolina’s medical director Betsy Tilson reported that “schools are not required to follow the 14-day quarantine previously in place when social distancing could not be followed.”

The state’s department of Health and Human Services “authorized local public health authorities to determine and establish the quarantine options for their jurisdictions.”

In Dare County, the following two options are now available:

“Quarantine can end after Day 10 without testing and if no symptoms have been reported during daily monitoring. (With this strategy, residual post-quarantine transmission risk is estimated to be about 1% with an upper limit of about 10%.)

“OR

“Quarantine can end after Day 7 if a diagnostic specimen tests negative and if no symptoms were reported during daily monitoring. The specimen may be collected and tested no sooner than 5 days from the last date of exposure to the positive case. (With this strategy, residual post-quarantine transmission risk is estimated to be about 5% with an upper limit of about 12%.)

“In both cases, continued symptom monitoring and masking through day 14 must be met, however social distancing is not required.

“For students to return to school by either early quarantine release option, parents must complete the online Early Release Attestation Form (and provide a negative test result, if applicable.” The form will be sent to parents upon notice of quarantine.

As of Oct. 5, 2021, Dare County Schools is reporting on its COVID-19 update a total of 10 active student cases with 38 students quarantined. Among staff, four people have active cases with no staffers quarantined.

The breakdown for individual schools is as follows:

Cape Hatteras Elementary: no active cases, two quarantined

Cape Hatteras Secondary: no active cases, one quarantined

First Flight Elementary: two active cases, two quarantined

First Flight Middle: one active case, three quarantined

First Flight High: one active case, six quarantined

Kitty Hawk Elementary: no active cases, two quarantined

Manteo Elementary: two active cases, four quarantined

Manteo Middle: two active cases, 0 quarantined

Manteo High: two active cases, one quarantined

Nags Head Elementary: no active cases, 17 quarantined

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