New covid-19 guidelines call for Arkansas schools to maintain as many virus precautions as possible — including strong consideration of consistent mask usage in classrooms where children are under age 12 or where vaccination status of students cannot be confirmed.
The school guidelines from the Departments of Education and Health and the Governor’s office were released Tuesday, a day in which:
• Gov. Asa Hutchinson met with community members in Dumas about the virus and to encourage vaccinations.
• The federal Centers for Disease Control revised its earlier guidelines to recommend indoor masks for all teachers, staff, students and visitors to schools, no matter their vaccination status.
The nine-page set of state guidelines for Arkansas schools recommends “implementing layered prevention strategies to protect people who are not fully vaccinated.”
Those strategies include appropriate masking, physical distancing, screening and testing for illness, adequate room ventilation, hand-washing, respiratory etiquette, cleaning and disinfection, and staying home when sick.
The guidelines, which acknowledge that mask wearing cannot be mandated under state law, conclude that the Delta variant of the covid-19 virus is now the predominant strain in the state and is two to three times more infectious and causes more severe illness than the earlier strain.
“While adolescents over 12 years of age and adults can be protected from the Delta variant by the covid-19 vaccines, children under 12 remain at high risk. Children represent an increasing proportion of new covid-19 cases, including hospitalizations and severe disease,” the updated guidelines state.
”In light of the spread of this more transmissible variant (and potential future strains), ADH and ADE urge schools to maintain as many mitigation measures as possible, or risk increased spread within the school setting.”
See Wednesday's Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more details.