Why social distancing and masks are important in schools

A local public health department holds the same role in a pandemic as it does during an infectious outbreak: to educate the public and mitigate the spread of communicable infections.

The difference, though, is that when the world is in a pandemic, the public health department’s work and role is highlighted, and often under scrutiny.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department has offered guidance based on Illinois Department of Public Health standards to local daycares, assisted living facilities and religious organizations.

Those working documents have included best practices and vital information to help guide decisions that entities, such as those school districts, are currently making.

CUPHD Public Health Administrator Julie Pryde said that the “Back to School Guidance Document and Best Practice Recommendations” released to the public on Monday was the local public health authority doing its job to educate the public on the safest way to send children to school.

Part of that guidance, from the Centers of Disease control, the IDPH and the Illinois State Board of Education is that all students and staff must wear masks in school and that six feet of distance between individuals will help slow the spread of COVID-19.

Pryde said that is why the CUPHD was adamant that best practice is that everyone maintains at least six feet of separation on the bus, in the classroom, bathroom, lunchroom, in the hallways, in resource classes, at recess and during emergency drills.

They wrote, “ Masks/face coverings do not replace social distancing. Face coverings must be worn at all times— even when social distancing is being maintained.”

Wearing a mask and the distance between two people have been up for discussion at several board meetings in Champaign County school districts. While some have chosen to provide online learning options, and others have chosen a hybrid learning model to reduce class sizes, a few have chosen to go back full-time, making social distancing during the school day difficult.

Some districts have cited ISBE’s use of “as much as possible” or their statement that desks can be 3 feet apart when referencing social distancing to allow for situations, whether on a bus or at a desk, for students to be closer than the recommended six-feet.

“If they are going to plan on having full buses and full classrooms, it’s not going to work at all.

“I don’t understand why anyone would choose three feet, because that’s literally in no guidance, anywhere that we can find,” she said. “It has nothing to do with infection control for this virus at all.

“If schools want to go against our guidance, they can do that, but they’re doing it at their own peril. We’re literally trying to prevent things from happening. That’s what we do.”

Pryde said that in the event of an outbreak, it will be the CUPHD’s responsibility to quarantine individuals who have been within six-feet of the source for at least 15 minutes.

If students or staff are sitting closer than six-feet to each other on a bus ride or in a classroom, the impact of the number of individuals who will have to quarantine for 14 days will be greater than if students are spaced within the best practices.

“The communicable disease code is clear on what we will do if we do if we get a case in there. And that will be done throughout the state, that’s not just Champaign,” Pryde said.

“We just want to make sure that both school, parents and everybody else are aware of this, even if they’re wearing a mask,” Pryde said.

“That’s the guidance for what public health has to do for isolation and quarantine. So we want to just make sure that they understand that just because they are following ISBE guidance. It will not prevent exclusion from school or quarantine.”

Pryde said that by educating the school boards, families, teachers, staff and public, people can make their own decision knowing what will come should a COVID-19 infection be present in a school.

“We can never prevent a case from coming into your school or your workplace or your business,” Pryde said. “But if you’re doing the proper infection control procedures, then you can prevent an outbreak.”

By following the best practices, it is possible for only the person infected with COVID-19 to be quarantined. But when those best practices are not followed, additional individuals could be removed from school or the workplace for a 14 day period.

“We want that to be clear to people,” Pryde said.

“It’s not like we just randomly come up with things to be implemented. We want people, including the schools to understand this, because I don’t think that they do.

“People need informed consent, whether they’re sending their kids to school, whether they are assigning their room for the fall, whether they are a teacher who has an underlying health condition or whether there’s someone who has someone that is at risk, living in their home. We can’t make decisions for everyone. We need them to have the most up-to-date information they can to make decisions with.”

The decisions that happen at school don’t only affect one child, one classroom or one family.

“If you’re working with younger kids that would require childcare, and then you know your school is putting is within three feet of each other, even though ISBE says that’s okay, if there’s a kid in that class with (COVID-19) everyone around that kid is going to be sent home.”

In the last month, daycare centers in Champaign County have been closed for two weeks after cases of COVID-19 were confirmed because guidelines provided in CUPHD documents were not being followed.

If schools don’t follow CUPHD and IDPH guidelines, they could experience similar circumstances.

Pryde said that documents like this are important because it gives parents another tool to understand what best practices are and what will happen if there is an outbreak.

“I guarantee you if kids are sent home and then the parents have to deal with daycare for somebody, and they were sending their kids to school doing what they were told to do,they are going to be angry. They’re going to be angry at the schools and they’re going to be angry at us.

“They need to know upfront if their classroom is not set up in this way, they need to consider alternate methods.”

Champaign County long-term care facilities have seen the benefits of following the, what could be considered stricter, guidance from CUPHD.

“If they have an outbreak, they can just explain why they’re going against the guidance,” Pryde said. “We had very good luck up until recently with our long term care facilities. When other places were having massive outbreaks when our places were following that enhanced guidance. It served them well even though our guidance was stricter at the time than what IDPH or the CDC had.

“We still knew it was best practice.”

As soon as an outbreak happens, CUPHD will do an investigation based on their authority in the Administrative Code. That authority is given by the State of Illinois.

The public body is also responsible for working with local school districts in developing plans to prevent an outbreak of communicable disease.

“We work very closely with the schools, we always have,” Pryde said. “This is no different; this is just much more widespread and then there’s much less known about this, which makes us anxious and it really shouldn’t make everyone else anxious.

“What we don’t know about this is way more than what we do know about this virus because it’s only been around for seven months. Are there long term effects associated with this? Can you get infected multiple times, and if you do, is the next infection better or worse?

“So we want to make sure that people understand what an underlying health condition is; that’s why we listed them out, and that’s why we put the link to it because those can change as research changes.

“There will likely be things added.”

CUPHD wanted to make sure that obesity (30 body mass index) was included in the document because it is an often overlooked condition that has very serious complications with COVID-19.

With approximately 28,000 students and 5,000 members of school staff in Champaign County, each situation is unique.

“It’s more than just the schools needing to make the decisions, this is the teachers, the cafeteria workers, the maintenance crew, aides, everyone,” Pryde said.

“It’s too complicated to have just one choice; that’s why we really encouraged schools from the beginning to offer options.”

Regardless of the options school districts in Champaign County give their students, CUPHD is already gearing up to handle contact tracing.

By this time next month, they will have well over 60 contact tracers, which will be above the standard needed for the population.

The group will be closely watching upticks in positivity rate and hospitalization.

“Our community needs to know that we will definitely be doing our part, but we need other people to do their part,” Pryde said. “That is the simple things of masking and social distancing. and hand washing.

“It’s going to be key throughout this entire pandemic. So if people really want things to get back to normal and our economy to have the best chance of getting back to normal, they have to do these, these mitigation strategies because it’s all we have until there’s something else like a vaccine or prophylaxis. We don’t have anything else. And they work.”

The CUPHD is happy to review plans that school district submit, and will even send a team from environmental health to the school to work on ways to make things safer.

But the district has to invite the public health agency to work with them.

Pryde added that CUPHD is always available to answer questions from the community.

Pryde added that kindness also does wonders.

“These are stressful times for everyone,” she said. “And it does no good to go into a place and yell at somebody or yell at school. I think people are trying.”

Here is the Back to School Guidance that was updated on July 21, 2020:

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