Vermont officials are loosening guidelines for contact tracing in schools for the second time this semester.
Last month, the Agency of Education said schools that were 80% vaccinated and had a student body wholly eligible for shots could forgo contact tracing entirely.
Now, under new Agency of Education guidelines published Thursday, the state is relaxing its contact tracing guidelines even more.
Previously, the agency recommended that school staffers identify and inform all close contacts of a student who tested positive for the coronavirus. A close contact was defined as “anyone within 6 feet of an infectious person for 15 minutes or more.”
But the guidance issued Thursday halved that distance, recommending that only students within 3 feet of a positive test be identified.
“This update is based on findings from other states that find this definition results in low levels of transmissions in school settings,” the guidance reads.
To that end, the guidelines recommend that schools relax efforts to trace contacts, instead of trying to identify everyone within a 6-foot radius.
On school buses, that means tracers should “only contact-trace the seatmate of a case, if known,” according to the new guidelines.
In case of exposure in a lunchroom, students “should be asked who they sat with.”
The new guidance also changes procedures on contact tracing during outdoor activities. Last month, the state recommended that schools “should notify families of a potential exposure during recess/outdoor time.” Students should be tested several days after a potential contact, but should not quarantine unless “clear close contact has been identified.”
Yesterday’s guidance cuts that section entirely.
“Schools should not contact-trace close contacts of cases that occurred outdoors,” the new guidelines read. “Schools should no longer send low-risk exposure letters.”
Roughly two months into the school year, some school officials have expressed frustration that the state has not provided adequate support for contact tracing in schools. The loosening of guidelines has also divided health professionals.
The Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed the new guidance Thursday, saying that “other states using similar contact tracing guidance have not seen increased in-school transmission.”
But Anne Sosin, a Dartmouth College policy fellow and public health researcher who has criticized the state’s handling of the Delta variant, gave the new recommendations a mixed review.
Changing the metric of close contact from 6 to 3 feet is “reasonable,” she said, as is reducing outdoor contact tracing.
But “there’s no reason to contact-trace buses and cafeterias differently than we do other settings,” she said, noting that those are situations where students often remove masks.
Ted Fisher, an Agency of Education spokesperson, said the new recommendations were issued after consultations with school and medical officials. The guidelines were “not changing anything in terms of risk,” he said.
“We’re not talking about losing contact tracing entirely,” Fisher said. “We just want to make it as efficient as possible.”
