There are now even fewer restrictions around COVID-19 at Berkeley schools, following new guidelines for isolation and testing released by the California Department of Public Health last week.
While wastewater data shows cases are spiking in the Bay Area, hospitalizations have remained low due to broad immunity and treatments. Now, state guidelines say, it makes sense to treat COVID-19 more like the flu.
In BUSD, guidelines around testing, masking and returning to school after testing positive are all the loosest they have been since the pandemic began in March 2020. The new guidelines move away from five days of isolation, using symptoms to determine whether people need to isolate.
Students in BUSD who test positive for COVID-19 can now return to school with a mask on as long as their symptoms are mild and improving and they haven’t had a fever for 24 hours. Students who test positive but don’t have symptoms are no longer asked to stay home from school, but should wear a mask for 10 days or until getting two negative tests.
After being exposed to COVID-19, students and staff are no longer expected to wear a mask or take a test, as long as they don’t have symptoms and don’t plan to come in contact with high-risk individuals.
And staff will no longer send out the COVID-19 isolation notification emails that had become standard over the last two years.
Altogether, the new guidelines are yet another step away from the district’s previous approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. What was once a multi-million dollar program with detailed contact tracing, vaccine clinics and mass testing sites on campuses has been whittled down to a much more limited operation.
Read the full update on BUSD’s updated COVID-19 guidelines.
