State wants school plans without social distancing

OLYMPIA — The Washington State Department of Health is asking school districts across the state to craft COVID-19 response plans for the 2021-22 school year starting this fall that include full-time, in-class instruction with and without social distancing.

“We want districts to plan to provide full-time instruction for all students,” said Lacy Fehrenbach, deputy secretary of health in charge of the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, during an online weekly press briefing Wednesday.

Fehrenbach said the plans should include the wearing of face coverings, hand washing and the ventilation and cleaning of indoor spaces, but each district must also have separate plans that account for three feet of social distance in classrooms during class (and six feet elsewhere, such as cafeterias and gyms) and a plan that includes no physical distancing at all.

The Department of Health will formally issue more detailed health and safety guidelines to help districts plan for the 2021-22 school year — which starts in August — after separate meetings later this week of a science advisory group working with western state governments and the Centers for Disease Control.

“Existing guidance remains in effect and should be followed,” she said. “We’re pretty far away from the school year, and we’re continuing to monitor the course of the disease.”

The state health department was encouraging testing at schools, but would not require it, Fehrenbach said, though the department is assisting more than 100 of the state’s 295 school districts, as they regularly test both students and staff for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

With the CDC recommending approval of the two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 12-15, Fehrenbach encouraged as many parents as possible to get their adolescents vaccinated as soon as the vaccine became available, in addition to personal and school efforts to make and keep classrooms and schools safe.

“We have the opportunity for full-time instruction because these measures are in place,” she said.

Health Secretary Umair Shah said state health officials are seeing “hopeful signs” reported cases and hospitalizations for COVID-19 are “flattening and plateauing” and a 35% of Washington residents had some sort of immunity to COVID-19 — either through vaccination or because they had the disease — by the end of April.

However, Shah continued to encourage people to get vaccinated, saying the level at which “community immunity” or “robust vaccine coverage” will be achieved is difficult to predict or measure right now. However, he emphasized the vaccine provides additional protection to anyone who might catch the disease. Those ages 65 or older who have not been vaccinated are ten times more likely to be hospitalized, Shah said, while those ages 45-64 who are not vaccinated are 18 times more likely to be hospitalized.

“We need to stay focused on what is asked of us right now,” he said. “Not enough people are getting vaccinated.”

The state has established a new hotline for people looking to schedule a vaccination, 833-VAX-HELP (833-829-4357).

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.