Metro Public Health Coalition Reiterates Guidance for Schools, Notes Alignment, Diversion with CDC Recommendations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 22, 2021

The Metro Denver Partnership for Health (MDPH) on Monday reemphasized its commitment to the safe reopening of schools. The group noted that while its previously issued guidance aligns closely with new recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are a few important areas of divergence.

In a memo to the Denver Area School Superintendents Council, MDPH outlines how closely its COVID-19 Strategies for Schools, updated in December 2020, supports guidance from the CDC that was released February 12.

COVID-19 Strategies for Schools provides evidence-informed public health recommendations for Denver-area school districts and complements the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s school guidance regarding cases and outbreaks.

Both the CDC and the MDPH guidance align on the following principles:

  • The emphasis on the benefits of in-person learning, particularly for the youngest children and also to address disparities and inequities. 
  • The emphasis on prioritizing in-person K-12 learning over extracurricular activities and nonessential businesses and activities. 
  • The effectiveness of a matrix of basic prevention measures in assuring that in-person learning is safe for students and staff (e.g., masking, good ventilation, distancing, cohorting, handwashing, staying home when symptomatic, contact tracing).
  • The use of expanded COVID-19 testing as an adjunct to basic prevention measures.

“When compared with the CDC’s newly released guidance, MDPH’s COVID-19 Strategies for Schools aligns with important principles and diverges where metro data show it’s appropriate,” said John M. Douglas, Jr., MD, Executive Director of Tri-County Health Department and co-chair of MDPH. “The evidence-informed mitigation and prevention strategies for students and staff offered in our December 2020 update remain relevant and applicable for our region’s schools.”

The MDPH guidance differs from the CDC’s in two areas:

  • CDC guidance recommends a minimum of 6 feet of distance between people in schools, whereas the MDPH guidance recommends a minimum of 3 feet. 
  • MDPH guidance recommends careful assessment of in-school transmission as the better measure of the safety of in-person learning rather than relying on community transmission metrics to determine the appropriateness of in-person learning since these have not been found to be predictive of the safety of in-school learning in the metro schools over the past six months.

In preparing its December update, MDPH reviewed the most current research about COVID-19 transmission and the experiences of metro school districts in fall 2020. After review, MDPH determined where 6 feet of distancing cannot be achieved that 3 feet of distancing is appropriate with universal masking in place. Similarly, experiences in the fall did not identify a threshold of community transmission that was correlated with high rates of in-school transmission.

MDPH recommends that schools collect data to measure and monitor the effectiveness of mitigation strategies to inform next steps for the remainder of this school year and aid in planning for the next.

“The current trend of declining community case rates and the increasing protection of our most vulnerable residents and school staff through vaccination hold promise for our communities’ recovery and getting students into classrooms,” said Jason Vahling, Director of Broomfield Public Health and MDPH co-chair. “We will continue to work closely with our school districts to monitor, plan for, and support full in-person learning for all students.”

MDPH is led by six public health agencies serving the seven-county Denver metro area: Boulder County Public Health, Broomfield Public Health Department, Denver Department of Public Health & Environment, Denver Public Health, Jefferson County Public Health, and Tri-County Health Department, serving Adams, Arapahoe, and Douglas counties. MDPH’s work impacts nearly 3 million Coloradans — 60% of the state’s population — who live in this region. MDPH is supported and staffed by the Colorado Health Institute (CHI). COVID-19 Strategies for Schools can be found on CHI’s website at https://colo.health/MDPH.

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