When epidemiologist and parent Rebecca Fielding-Miller heard that California was going to allow asymptomatic, COVID-19-positive students to attend school without quarantining, she was stunned.

Under California’s new policy, students (and school workers) can return to the classroom “as long as they are asymptomatic and are improving” and have been free of fever for 24 hours without medication. The previously required five-day quarantine after testing positive, followed by 10 days of masking when in public spaces, is no longer in effect. The policy mirrors a similar plan implemented by the Oregon Department of Education in May 2023.

These changes, officials argue, support COVID-19’s transition from a public health emergency to an endemic public health concern, putting it in the same category as bronchitis, flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinovirus and the common cold.

Unsurprisingly, reaction to the change has been mixed. Some parents, for example, saw the previous requirement to keep a seemingly healthy, asymptomatic child at home burdensome, forcing them to take time off from work or scramble to arrange child care. But others, including Fielding-Miller, see the change as risky since adequate mechanisms to protect public health are rarely in place in either schools or work sites.

“The science is clear about the importance of ventilation and cleaning the air,” Fielding-Miller, a professor at California’s Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science, told Truthout. “Administrators need to make sure that there is enough ventilation in every classroom to keep everyone healthy.”

Every room, she explains, should have a working air filter, and while many schools used COVID relief money to purchase them, she says that they are routinely turned off because the sound generated can interfere with instruction. Furthermore, other forms of ventilation are also often unavailable. “In a lot of schools, windows do not open and teachers are told to keep classroom doors shut,” Fielding-Miller said. “I understand that everyone wants to return to normal, but for some of us, this means facing serious burdens. The law says that students should always be placed in the least restrictive environment possible, but children with respiratory or heart issues, or living in a multigenerational household with infants or the elderly — people who are at a higher risk of experiencing acute, life-threatening symptoms if they get the virus — are being forced to bear the brunt of this policy.”

For its part, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) seems to agree, noting that children with underlying health conditions including asthma and other chronic lung ailments, autoimmune disorders, congenital heart defects, diabetes, obesity and sickle cell anemia are at an elevated risk of becoming extremely sick if they contract COVID.

And, while the agency also makes clear that most children will eventually make a complete recovery........

© Truthout