It’s an excellent example of the ease of undermining efforts to protect children too young to be vaccinated, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the classroom of 22 students, 12 became infected, including eight out of ten students in the front two rows.
And this despite the layers of measures designed to prevent the transmission of the virus.
“The school required teachers and students to mask indoors; interviews with parents of infected students suggested that students’ adherence to masking and distancing guidelines in accordance with CDC recommendations was elevated in class. However, it was reported that the teacher sometimes unmasked himself when he read aloud in class, “the report said.
“Throughout this period, all desks were separated by six feet,” he added. “All the classrooms had portable, high-efficiency particulate air filters and the doors and windows were left open.”
Protecting children was not enough.
Eventually, 27 people, including the teacher, became infected. None were seriously ill and all recovered. These analyzed cases involved the Delta variant of the coronavirus, although the researchers said they were not necessarily able to prove to everyone that they could have been infected in the outbreak.
The CDC highlighted the case as an example of how schools should follow all recommendations if they want to protect students and staff.
“The introduction of the virus into the classroom by a teacher who worked at the school, although it was both symptomatic and unvaccinated and unmasked when read aloud in class, led to cases in the classroom. , across the school and among families of students and community staff, ”Walensky told a White House Covid-19 briefing on Friday.
“We know how to protect our children in school. We have the tools.”
Children under the age of 12 are not eligible for vaccination and the CDC says it is important that the adults around them get vaccinated to protect them.
Dr. Lisa Santora, a county health non-commissioned officer, said officials have urged teachers to get vaccinated since January, but many have not. “We saw first hand that it wasn’t children who were going to make teachers sick. It would be the opposite,” Santora told CNN.
Santora said Marin County had organized “Super Saturday” events to encourage teachers and staff to get vaccinated, but some teachers are not yet vaccinated. “Adults underestimate the risk of hospitalization when they choose not to get vaccinated,” he told CNN.
He said 90% of people in hospitals with Covid-19 in the county right now are not vaccinated, and many are between 30 and 50 years old.
The outbreak in primary school caused the Delta variant to make outbreak prevention difficult, he said.
“We had some of the adults who were part of the outbreak (they were parents of children at school) who were vaccinated. That was another indication to us that Delta was different,” he said.
“Among the five infected adults, one parent and the teacher were not vaccinated; the others were fully vaccinated,” the report says. “The vaccinated adults and one unvaccinated adult had symptoms of fever, chills, cough, headache and odor loss. No other school staff member reported being ill.”
The county was able to conduct an intense contact tracking operation that represented a good picture of what happened. It appears that several children were infected during one night’s sleep and some of the infected teacher’s class appear to have infected siblings.
The trial of most of the children who were exposed was key, as many of the children never developed symptoms.
“The school was on point with all of its mitigation strategies,” Santora said. “I don’t think it was Delta, I don’t think we would have seen it.”
However, the CDC concluded, schools can safely open face-to-face classes if they care.
“In schools with safety protocols for prevention and containment, case rates in children and adolescents were 3.4 times lower during the winter peak compared to community rates,” they wrote.
“This analysis reflects transmission patterns before the most transmissible variant of SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 (Delta) became predominant in the United States. A multiplayer prevention strategy, which includes masking, physical distancing, testing, and more recent childhood vaccinations and adolescents 12 years of age and older will continue to be critical to reducing transmission as more students return to the classroom, ”they added.
“These findings from a large, diverse county present preliminary evidence that schools provided a relatively safe environment during the 2020-21 school year.”