Reducing the COVID-19 quarantine period from 14 to 10 days is being requested by at least two Jefferson County school divisions and administrators, and is based on new data from the Centers for Disease Control.
Montana City School Trustee Marta Bertoglio, at a Dec. 10 Community Transition Advisory Committee meeting, said the Board of Trustees voted to have the school administration send a letter to the Jefferson County Health Board asking that the quarantine period be reduced.
Whitehall District Superintendent Hannah Nieskens, who also sits on Governor-elect Greg Gianforte’s COVID-19 Task Force, would also like the Health Board to reduce the time frame.
“I am in favor of the health board adopting the CDC’s guidance on the 10-day quarantine as the state DPHHS (Department of Public Health and Human Services) has encouraged local health boards and departments to do so. Per the CDC, the post-quarantine transmission risk at Day 10 is about 1.4%. A reduction in quarantine length is helpful to Whitehall schools because students miss less seat time. Rather than missing a full two weeks of school, they would lose six to eight days of school depending upon where the weekends fall in their quarantine cycle. In addition, quarantined staff would require fewer days of substitutes,” said Nieskens, adding that since the Board of Trustees doesn’t meet until Jan. 5, she doesn’t think it will be able to issue a letter in a timely manner.
“I do know, however, that my school board is in full support of a reduced quarantine period,” said Nieskens.
The letter from the Montana City Board of Trustees raised similar arguments.
“From an educational perspective, our students who struggle the most need as much in person instruction as possible, and really, we believe in person instruction is best for all of our students. Having the potential to get the kids back in school 4 days earlier would be a major benefit to our students,” said the letter signed by K-2/6-8 Principal Daryl Mikesell and 3-5 Principal Cori Trudeau.
Recently, the CDC released data indicating that the quarantine period can end after day 10 without testing and if no symptoms have been reported during daily monitoring. An individual can end a quarantine period at day seven if he or she receives a negative test and no symptoms have been reported.
In both cases, additional criteria, such as continued symptom monitoring and masking through day 14, must be met, according to the CDC.
The state appears to have put the onus for such a decision on local health boards, according to the Governor’s Coronavirus Task Force website.
“Quarantine procedures should be set into place through your local/tribal health department. Please call your local/tribal health department to discuss quarantine measures and your quarantine time-frame,” according to the website’s Frequently Asked Questions.
So far, the Jefferson County Health Board is leaning toward keeping the 14-day quarantine period, said Chairperson Christina Binkowski.
Binkowski said Public Health Department Supervisor Pam Hanna has researched the issue, and has checked with the neighboring counties of Silver Bow, Lewis and Clark and Madison and all are keeping with the 14-day period at this time.
Some issues to consider is that there is a good deal of testing that must be done if the time frame is changed and it would make contact tracing more difficult, she said.
More importantly, there are currently individuals who are sick, and possibly positive, but are not being tested because they do not want to be put in isolation or quarantine, said Binkowski.
For those reasons, the Health Board and Public Health Department will continue to research the issue, as the next regular meeting is Jan. 19, said Binkowski.
Another consideration is that the state will be getting a new governor and administration in January and the directives issued under Gov. Steve Bullock could change, she said.
