How Will The CDC’s Updated Covid Guidelines Impact AASD?

On 02/25/2022 the CDC released new guidance regarding Covid-19 prevention steps. These steps are based on the levels of Covid-19 in the community.

LOW

• Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines
• Get tested if you have symptoms

MEDIUM

• If you are at high risk for severe illness, talk to your healthcare provider about whether you need to wear a mask and take other precautions
• Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines
• Get tested if you have symptoms

HIGH

• Wear a mask indoors in public
• Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines
• Get tested if you have symptoms
• Additional precautions may be needed for people at high risk for severe illness

As you can see, masks for the general populace is only recommended if the Covid-19 level is high.

The CDC has also revamped how it determines Covid-19 levels within communities, moving away from a metric based solely on case rates to one that also incorporates hospitalizations and hospital capacity.

The new guidance indicates that if a community has 200 or more new cases (per 100,000 residents) over a 7 day timeframe their Covid-19 community will be at least “medium” and will rise to “high” if they experience new Covid-19 hospital admissions of 10 or more per 100,000 residents within a 7 day period or if the 7-day average of staffed inpatient beds occupied by Covid-19 patients is 10% or greater of the total number of staffed beds.

It remains to be seen how the Appleton Area School District will respond to this new guidance, and if they will base future masking mandates upon it. What can be known is that, based on the last two years of Appleton case rates, Appleton will very possibly be in at least the “medium” category for the first semester of school.

Additionally, ThedaCare has experienced multiple instances of hospital stress since the start of the pandemic in October of 2020, September of 2021, and as recently as January of this year. As recently as 02/04/2022 16% of ThedaCare Appleton’s beds were taken up by Covid patients as were 13.7% of St. Elizabeth’s beds. Both of those percentages would move Appleton to the “high” category.

Although Appleton Area School District Superintendent Judy Baseman had indicated that she expected the school district to treat Covid like it does influenza during the 2022-23 school year, when I asked her what the timeline would be for making that change she responded that they did not have a specific timeline and would be working with the City of Appleton Health Department to monitor the changing landscape.

Treating Covid the same as influenza is not necessarily reflective of the Appleton Health Department’s position. When I reached out to Health Officer Sepers he responded, “The challenge of ‘treating COVID like influenza,’ as you suggest, is that influenza is not a pandemic disease like COVID-19, but an endemic (a disease regularly found in the population) virus. Because of the pandemic nature of COVID-19, the response to influenza and COVID-19 is much different. This can be seen in the dramatic difference in case counts and hospitalizations when comparing influenza to COVID-19. Weekly Respiratory Report (wisconsin.gov) is the WI influenza-like illness report, which highlights the influenza data at the state level (note that seasonal coronavirus refers to the 32 known coronaviruses and does not include the novel coronavirus COVID-19). When compared to the case counts and hospitalizations for the same periods with COVID-19, the disease burden is much greater with the pandemic virus. It is this disparity of disease burden that requires specialized focus on technical assistance to AASD and other stakeholders around COVID-19.”

When I asked him, “At what point, if ever, will the Health Department recommend to the mayor and the school district that enforcing CDC guidance through mandates is unnecessary?” he responded, “As stated previously, the Appleton Health Department’s role has previously been, and continues to be, to work in partnership with AASD by communicating both the local conditions (i.e., case counts and hospital bed capacity) and issue evidence-based guidance and expert opinion (e.g., CDC, American Academy of Pediatrics). It is the position of the health department that these recommendations be considered within a constellation of variables that are important to the school board. I think that the school board meeting on Wednesday reflected careful consideration of these variables by that body.”

[At this point, it appears to me that there is still not a lot of clarity as to what AASD Covid mitigation measures will look like next year, and based on the last two years of data, there is a distinct possibility that there will be multiple weeks during the first semester in which masking would be required under the new CDC guidance. Meanwhile, despite the lack of clarity as to what the 2022-23 school year will look like, the clock is still ticking on the enrollment periods for moving to a different public school district or applying for private school vouchers. The public school open enrollment window ends 04/29/2022 and the private school voucher enrollment window ends 04/15/2022.]