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Lisa Donsker, a longtime Great Hearts charter school parent, recently moved her daughter to a different charter network because the school did not have a mask mandate and had few other COVID-19 safety measures. Her son, in a district-run school, reports intermittent masking.
Alice Daer is another parent juggling different mitigation measures in two Phoenix-area districts. The district her youngest child attends offers rapid testing with a school nurse if they show symptoms. Her oldest child’s school, a small charter, offers weekly antigen testing and has publicized the percentage of its student body that is vaccinated (nearly 75%, she said).
The primary experience? Confusion and fear.
“If you are not getting information from five sources that you seek out yourself, it is just hard to know,” Donsker said.
Two years into the pandemic, with another variant and changing quarantine rules, some Arizona families say they are facing a new wave of confusion. That’s made more difficult because not all Arizona schools are closely following the recommended COVID-19 mitigation measures.
To help clarify the current best practices, The Arizona Republic spoke to two University of Arizona health experts: Dr. Farshad Marvasti, who goes by Dr. Shad, and Dr. Ruth Franks Snedecor.
They say many Arizona schools are not using all of the mitigation measures at their disposal, from masks to ventilation, leaving families to grapple with the fallout from high COVID-19 spread.
“We are not doing everything in all schools that we can from a public health standpoint,” Marvasti said. “We are setting them up for failure in terms of getting COVID.”
The CDC now recommends a 5-day isolation period. What does this mean for students in school?
The new recommendations do shorten the isolation period for people with COVID-19 to five days if they are asymptomatic or they have not had a fever for 24 hours, followed by five days of wearing a mask when around others.
Public health experts, however, say to approach that guidance with caution.
The omicron variant shows people testing positive on a different time frame than earlier ones, said Snedecor, making the five-day quarantine period an imperfect count.
“Like everything happening in the pandemic, we tend to give it all or nothing,” she said. “That is not the case, ever, with COVID.”
And because many Arizona schools are already not following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations on wearing masks indoors, the shortened isolation period could be even more dangerous, Marvasti said.
“It’s unscientific and unsafe,” he said.
What should families do if a student is exposed to COVID-19?
Recommendations for what to do if students are exposed to COVID-19 depend on whether they have been vaccinated, but any student who is not fully vaccinated should act as if they are not vaccinated at all, say Marvasti and Snedecor.
Anyone exposed should wear a well-fitting mask for 10 days after exposure and get tested after five days, say CDC guidelines. Some schools in Arizona offer a test-to-stay program that allow students to remain in class as long as they do not test positive.
Some schools’ exposure notices do not have dates. What’s the best course of action?
Snedecor suggests parents and guardians consider whether a child is vaccinated, whether the student has been wearing a mask, whether the person they were exposed to was wearing a mask and if they were socially distanced in a classroom. If the answer to one of those is a firm no, she said, families should get tested and monitor their students for symptoms.
And if both kids were unmasked, the student should quarantine.
COVID-19 tests are scarce. What is the most efficient way to use them?
Access to testing has been uneven, with Arizonans most recently contending with an omicron-fueled shortage. Families can either get a PCR test, which is reviewed by a lab and can be obtained at a local clinic or pharmacy, or a rapid test, which is often available for purchase and gives results in about 15 minutes but is less sensitive.
Amid the testing shortage, Snedecor said, families should rely on PCRs to determine an infection because it may catch COVID-19 earlier and is reported to the health department, giving a more accurate read of cases. Still, if families have access to rapid tests, it can help them get a point-in-time read on infection.
Ideally, Marvasti agrees, parents would have access to many rapid tests to check their child at the first knowledge of an exposure and be able to continually test from there. Instead, he laments, the lack of access to tests has exacerbated existing disparities among families.
“Because of systemic structural racism, social determinants of health are playing out in this pandemic, including in access to testing,” he said.
COVID-19 rapid tests: Here’s how Arizona families can access them.
When does the health department step in and determine a school needs to close?
The Maricopa County Department of Public Health defines school outbreaks as two laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases among students or staff within a 14-day period. The health department offers schools paid staff to assist with contact tracing, over-the-counter rapid tests and surgical masks for students.
However, the decision to close a school would be made by the school board in consultation with public health officials, “and is typically because a school is unable to operate, either due to a lack of staff or students,” said public information officer Sonia Singh.
There are currently 78 open outbreaks in Maricopa County schools, Singh said.
My school won’t mandate masks. What can I do?
The CDC recommends that all students, staff, teachers and visitors wear face masks, KN95s if possible.
But in Arizona, where face masks are divisive and the governor has offered incentives to schools without mask mandates, many schools don’t require them.
No matter what, students are still at risk for catching the virus that causes COVID-19, Marvasti said, but that risk is lessened if a student is vaccinated. Parents should consider having unvaccinated students learn remotely until they are able to get a shot. And if they are vaccinated, parents should make sure their child follows mitigation measures like wearing a mask and regularly using hand sanitizer.
Snedecor, herself an activist with a group called Right2SafeSchools as well as a hospital physician, suggests parents band together to push their school administration for a mask policy or, if they really hit a wall, consider moving their child to a district with a mask requirement.
What’s the best practice for reusing face masks?
While the CDC has said that any mask is better than no mask, the best practice is to use a high-quality KN94/KN95 mask and, if possible, let the KN94/KN95 mask sit for at least 24 hours before wearing again. Families should also avoid washing masks in the sink or touching the surface of the mask, Snedecor said, and surgical or paper masks should be discarded after a single use.
What if you can’t stay home with your kids?
The reality for many families is they aren’t able to stay home with their children if their child is exposed to COVID-19 or tests positive for the coronavirus.
Marvasti suggests families call on extended family and approach the illness as they would if a child had a bad cold or the flu. Still, he says, this is the core of his frustration at how COVID-19 is being handled in schools: The onus is put on individual families to figure out solutions rather than widespread and consistent policies.
“The fact that our policies are not aligned with public health science — it really makes you feel like we are just on our own,” he said.
Reach the reporter at ykunichoff@arizonarepublic.com and follow her on Twitter @yanazure.
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