Safer Communities Mean Safer Schools

Almost a year ago, as the COVID-19 pandemic started affecting our communities, schools throughout the country turned to virtual learning to help protect students, teachers, school staff, and their families. Today, schools use different strategies to prevent spread. Some teach class online, while others have opened safely and conduct in-person learning using multiple prevention strategies, even in areas with relatively high levels of community spread. Recent studies in schools that strictly followed multiple prevention strategies found that most cases in schools came from community spread of disease, not from spread within the school itself.^1,2,3 This means that each community has an opportunity to help schools return to in-person learning and make them safer by making their own community safer. How do we do that?

There are three important areas where we need to focus our attention to make communities safer.

1) Prevent spread to make your community safer
CDC recently published guidance for schools that highlights the critical need for communities to reduce spread to ensure a safe return to school and other activities. Communities that reduce the level of COVID-19 spread will foster greater opportunities for schools to safely return to in-person learning. Here are 6 steps to a safer community that each of us can do:

1. Wear a well-fitting mask
2. Stay 6 feet apart
3. Avoid gatherings
4. Wash hands often
5. Stay home when you are sick
6. Get vaccinated when vaccine is available to you

To see data from your community, visit  CDC’s COVID Data Tracker.

2) Increase testing
The number of COVID-19 tests people are getting continues to decline nationally. The average volume of tests over a seven-day period is down 20.2% from last week. Anyone who has symptoms of COVID-19 should be tested. Anyone who has been around someone with COVID-19 should also be tested. Additionally, last week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announcedexternal icon efforts to expand COVID-19 testing for schools and people living and gathering in group settings, such as homeless shelters. By increasing testing, we can quickly identify people who have COVID-19 and isolate them from others, take steps to prevent further spread, and better address the threat of variants.

3) Continue rapid vaccination scale-up
Vaccination rates continue to increase and as of February 25, 2021, 13.9% of the U.S. population has received one or more doses of the vaccine. Additional data were released this week to visually show how many people in each state and nationally have been vaccinated. Vaccinating more adults, including essential workers such as teachers and educational staff, is critical to curbing the pandemic.