New York State will stop requiring schoolchildren to undergo Covid-19 testing to return to the classroom or quarantine after exposure to someone with the virus, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday morning.
The policy changes, which follow new federal Covid-19 guidance, will be outlined in letters sent to New York school districts Monday afternoon from the state health and education departments.
They are meant to make sure students can stay in school as much as possible, the governor said at a news briefing.
“We know there’s no replacement for in-classroom learning,” she said, adding that the country still is coping with the “devastating” effects of students forced to stay home during the pandemic.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the updated Covid-19 guidance earlier this month. Under the eased rules, the agency no longer recommends quarantine for people exposed to the virus, and adds that students obtaining a negative test before returning to the classroom is no longer necessary.
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New York will adopt these and other changes, Hochul said.
“The days of sending an entire classroom home because one person was symptomatic, or tests positive, those days are over,” Hochul said. “We’ve been through that experiment.”
Students who test positive for Covid-19 must stay home for five days.
The governor emphasized how different the start of the 2022-23 school year looks from the same time one year ago, when social-distancing and testing provisions were in place and students were required to wear face masks for most of the school day.
Local school officials early Monday afternoon were still awaiting the formal guidance from the state, but welcomed the general shift in policy.
“Sounds to me like the governor’s acknowledging the fact that it’s time for the school experience in September of 2022 to look largely like it did in September of 2019,” said Hamburg Superintendent Michael Cornell, who is president of the Erie-Niagara School Superintendents Association.
Hochul again urged parents to get their children vaccinated, particularly younger children whose vaccination rates have lagged behind those of older New Yorkers, because enough time has passed to demonstrate the vaccines are safe for all.
The state is preparing to provide schools with one Covid-19 test kit per child at the beginning of the school year.
Hochul on Monday shared the latest Covid-19 case data for the state.
She said per-capita cases have continued to fall in recent weeks, to a seven-day average of 22.9 cases per 100,000 residents the week ending Sunday. That’s a drop from the average of 35 cases per 100,000 recorded a month ago, and far below the recent high average of 381 cases per 100,000 residents recorded in January. Hospitalizations also have stabilized in recent weeks.
Hochul said state officials will keep an eye on the expected seasonal rise in case levels, something the state saw when fall turned to winter in 2020 and again in 2021. She said she hopes the annual spike during the holiday season won’t be as sharp this year.
Cornell noted schools saw little transmission among students; most students and teachers are vaccinated, were previously infected by Covid-19 or both; and every classroom in a public and private school in Erie County has an air purifier thanks to a county-funded program.
In-person instruction is invaluable, and time away from the classroom has severely harmed schoolchildren, Cornell said.
“I think the governor and the CDC recognize that we don’t have an emergency of Covid in our schools, we have an emergency of mental and emotional wellness of our school-age population in our schools,” he said. “That’s where the emergency is.”
Hochul has come under criticism for extending for another month the executive order that grants her emergency powers to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.
Asked at the news conference about the need for the state of emergency, given the easing of Covid-19 restrictions in other areas, Hochul said its primary value now is to allow different categories of health care workers, such as emergency medical technicians, to administer the vaccine.
But, Hochul said, once the state gets through the next month, and the start of the school year, she will reconsider the need for the emergency rule.
“We need those extra people available, but that may come to an end soon,” Hochul said. “And when it comes to an end, and we don’t need it, you know, I’ll be very happy to cease the executive order.”
Hochul and Dr. Mary Bassett, the state health commissioner, also discussed recent outbreaks of polio and monkeypox.
Bassett urged people who aren’t vaccinated against polio, or are unsure of their status, to get vaccinated against the virus, particularly if they live in Rockland or Orange counties downstate, where the outbreak is centered.
Regarding monkeypox, because of a severe shortage of vaccines, the state is preparing to change how it administers monkeypox vaccine doses to inoculate more people with the same amount of vaccine, Bassett said.
Administering the vaccine directly into the skin, a method known as intradermal, allows the state to use one-fifth of a standard vaccine dose, which is injected below the skin layer, or subcutaneously, she said. Bassett conceded intradermal dosing is more difficult for the provider to administer and more unpleasant for the recipient of the dose, but it is the best way to get the most people protected against monkeypox.
New York has more cases of monkeypox than any other state, and 90% of the state’s 2,800 cases are in New York City, she said. Of the roughly 200 cases outside the five boroughs, Erie County has eight cases, and Niagara County has reported two cases.
The vast majority of cases have spread among men who have sex with other men, Bassett said, through direct skin-to-skin contact.
