COVID-19: NYC Quote of the Day 2020-08-02

Friday, July 31, 2020, NYC Test and Trace Corps Director Ted Long - Three Outcomes for School Quarantine or Closure

As a parent myself, the safety and health of my son is always my highest priority. We've designed a tracing operation for our schools that puts the safety and health of our teachers, students, and kids like my son at the center at all times.

For a positive case, it could be reported by a parent, teacher, or another student. A positive case must be laboratory confirmed. The rule is that the entire classroom, meaning the teacher of the classroom and all of the students in the classroom, will quarantine for 14 days after when that positive case is identified.

If there is a child or a teacher that's symptomatic in the school, we have the child or the teacher leave the school as soon as possible to prevent transmission of the virus to anybody else in the school. If the child or teacher is symptomatic at home, we require that the child or student stay at home and not come to the school and potentially risk infecting other people in the school. The next step in either of those two scenarios is that we want the child or the teacher to get tested at one of our more than 200 sites across New York City, free of charge.

In addition, we do an investigation by the Department of Health and the New York City Test and Trace Corps. That investigation will have one of two outcomes. If there's a single case in a school, the students in the classroom and the teacher are going to quarantined for two weeks, no matter what. If that investigation may find that there are other close contacts of the case in the school, those other close contacts will also quarantine at home for two weeks.

If there's more than one case in a school, and it's not in the same classroom, during the investigation by the Test and Trace Corps and the Department of Health the school will close for 24 hours. When the investigation concludes, one of two things will happen. The first outcome could be that the classroom, all of the students and the teacher, and any close contacts identified from either of the two or more cases would quarantine for two weeks, but the school can reopen. The second outcome would be that if we believe there is risk of transmission in this school between those cases, then the rest of the school remains closed to ensure that everybody in the school can be safe, and everybody in the school quarantines for the 14-day period.
Edited for redundancy, grammar, and emphasis
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