New COVID-19 guidelines adjust how schools deal with outbreaks, quarantines

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Last week, Governor Jared Polis released revised school outbreak guidelines, which define COVID-19 outbreaks in schools.

Within the first three months of returning to class, some schools have already been faced with some students testing positive for COVID-19. Academy District 20 spokesperson Allison Cortez says some of its schools have had to close down because of quarantines.

"Sometimes we've had closures not because we had a positive, but because the quarantine literally took out so many people we couldn't run the school," she said.

Now, instead of automatically quarantining entire cohorts or classrooms of students, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment released these guidelines that break down how to determine who needs to be home from school, closures, school surveillance and so much more.

"Rather than quarantining large classes, 130 kids, 40 kids, we will be able to target those close contacts better so we send fewer kids home to be quarantined," she said.

The guidelines also list some new, more specific symptoms.

"Now there is a whole other section of symptoms that really is focused on a loss of taste or smell. That is a hot ticket symptom and is an immediate quarantine or isolation," Cortez said.

If a student or staff member does test positive for the virus, they will be able to return after one negative test, compared to the two tests needed before.

For a full list of the revisions, visit here.