Reply to MCPS will now send kids home for ten days based on symptoms only

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Reply to "MCPS will now send kids home for ten days based on symptoms only"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote]
Several school district and county officials, including Wolff and Gayles, said the new guidelines were implemented after a conversation with MCPS, Gayles and health department officials last week. The recommendations were not given to MCPS in writing until Tuesday, five days after they were announced publicly.[/quote]

[quote]On Wednesday, Gayles said that about 25% of students placed in quarantine during the first week of school were determined to be “true close contacts” of someone who tested positive for the virus.

He said he has worked with MCPS to “provide clarifications” about how the guidelines are applied, including in how to determine who is a close contact.

“In the last week, we have worked with our school health staff and disease control staff to make sure that folks are doing the due diligence in terms of reading investigations to find out more, and find out if there are alternative diagnoses that can explain those symptoms, and getting a fuller picture before that further advice is given,” Gayles said.[/quote]

[quote]Wolff and Onijala explained in interviews on Wednesday morning that the testing could not be implemented sooner because the in-school health employees had been previously deployed to support the county’s vaccination and testing efforts. The employees were not available to administer the tests, as required.[/quote]

“They were needed around the county in order to support vaccination and testing programs to get our numbers in a decent range, so we could open the schools,” Wolff said.[quote]

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-beat/schools/mcps-will-use-rapid-covid-19-tests-when-students-have-possible-symptoms/

So basically DHHS and MCPS had a meeting in which Dr. Gayles said they needed to quarantine close contacts of kids with symptoms, MCPS went ahead and started sending vague guidance to schools and and everyone freaked out, then last Friday MCPS sent out written guidance which they drafted based on the verbal guidance from Dr. Gayles while quarantining entire classes of children because they didn't know how to determine close contacts (WTAF?!?!? WHAT HAVE THEY BEEN DOING ALL SUMMER?), then on Tuesday, Dr. Gayles got around to sending the written guidance? In the meantime DHHS made no plans to implement rapid testing in schools before school started and when people complained now they are scrambling? Honestly these people are truly, truly incompetent. I would expect this from a low-income jurisdiction but this is Montgomery County. We have money to pay for competent people. JFC.
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