Students in the Oakland Unified School District returned to school Tuesday with new COVID guidance.
Students that test positive are now allowed to attend class, as long as they don’t have symptoms.
The change comes after the California Department of Public Health released new guidance, saying it’s now OK to head back to school, or work, if you test positive for COVID, but have no symptoms and you wear a mask.
Before this change, people who tested positive for COVID had to isolate for five days, whether they had symptoms or not.
Oakland Unified is one of the first school districts to align with the state’s new guidance.
“It’s enabled us to have a little more room to operate in the district,” said John Sasaki of the Oakland Unified School District.
Students at OUSD who test positive will need to wear a mask around other people indoors for 10 days.
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They can ditch the mask sooner, if they have two negative tests in a row, at least one day apart.
“We’re no longer issuing those isolation notifications. And so it’s kind of going to be incumbent on our families and the students to know what’s going on with regard to their own health,” said Sasaki. “It’s really like the flu, like RSV, all these seasonal diseases we get every year.”
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“I think Oakland Unified School District will be a test case, but again, what they’re doing is not being rogue. It’s in alignment with guidelines issued by the California Department of Public Health,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong of UCSF.
He added that it may sound scary on the surface, but it is reasonable. We have more population immunity now, as well as a wide array of prevention and treatment strategies.
“I would imagine that other school districts will follow. Simply because it will minimize disruptions as much as possible. It will keep students in the seats as much as possible and it’s the way that we have to think about it in the future,” said Chin-Hong.
Guidance for those who test positive and have symptoms will remain the same.
They’ll still need to stay home until they haven’t had a fever for 24-hours, without using medication.
