What you need to know about new COVID-19 guidelines as school year approaches

The 2022-23 school year is close at hand and with it comes concerns about COVID-19 and its potential to disrupt normal school activities.

The last three school years – 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 – have all had a COVID disruption in some capacity, whether it was remote or hybrid learning, masking up in school or having classes canceled because of a lack of teachers, students or both.

With that in mind, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new, less-restrictive set of guidelines last week to combat this through eliminating the recommendation to quarantine, ending "test to stay" guidance and focusing testing on high-risk activities during times of outbreaks.

Here's how these new restrictions will affect the school year at every level – whether its K-12 or in college.

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What did the CDC change?

On Thursday, the CDC released a new set of guidelines for the general public and K-12 schools. For schools, here are the big takeaways:

• Testing is no longer recommended at the K-12 level. Instead, the CDC recommends that schools place an emphasis on screening testing for high-risk activities, such as sports, band, choir and theater, before or after large activities and after returning from winter or spring break.

• Schools have been taken out of the list of places considered at high risk for congregate spread, meaning that for students, staff members and parents exposed to someone with COVID, they do not need to quarantine.

• As a result of the end of the quarantine requirement, the CDC has ended the test-to-stay recommendation.

Of note for the general public, the CDC now recommends testing solely for those who have been exposed and are symptomatic. Testing will be of emphasis at those high-risk places, which include health care facilities, long-term care centers, correctional facilities and homeless shelters, among others.

Why did the CDC decide to do this now?

The country has reached a point where a large percentage of the population has been exposed to the virus in some way or has been vaccinated to prevent serious strain on the country's health care system.

In Illinois, for instance, cases of COVID-19 rose to a seven-day average of over 6,000 cases in May, as variants such as the new BA.5 subset of the Omicron strain and looser restrictions led to a jump in cases. What it didn't lead to was a commensurate jump in deaths, with deaths dropping significantly from the peaks of the first omicron strain back in the winter.

"We have a better understanding of how to protect people from being exposed to the virus, like wearing high-quality masks, testing and improved ventilation," said Dr. Greta Massetti, an epidemiologist for the CDC. "This guidance acknowledges that the pandemic is not over, but also helps us move to a point where COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our daily lives."

How will it affect schools?

In general, the goal for the new guidelines is to prevent disruption during the school year, whether it's by not having so many people out because of quarantine requirements during periods of high transmission or by allowing people to evaluate their own risk.

"Of course, we really want to protect people," said Sylwia Josniuk, a clinical lead for Chicago Internal Medicine Practice and Research, who was working at the Illinois State Fair on Saturday to help get people vaccinated. "At the same time, we want to enable people to get on with their lives. We know that a lot of schools have been impacted by very rigorous guidelines and it impacted the quality of education."

What is being done at a local level to respond to these guidelines?

Both the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois State Board of Education adopted the guidelines last Friday. IDPH Director Sameer Vohra said that with the availability of vaccines and changing conditions on the ground, the time had come to make changes to longstanding recommendations.

"Current conditions of the pandemic are very different from those of the last two years, with many available tools to protect the general public, including widespread availability of vaccines for everyone 6 months and older," Vohra said in a release. "We’ve always prioritized hospital capacity, and hospitals are not facing the kind of strain we saw during earlier COVID-19 waves."

It's unknown at this time whether local school districts will adjust their guidelines to meet these new recommendations. Springfield Public School District 186 recommends following CDC and IDPH guidelines when it comes to infectious disease.

The University of Illinois Springfield still requires people to have the initial series of COVID-19 vaccines – sans booster – but does not require those who are vaccinated to be tested. Those unvaccinated will need to test at least once a week during the fall semester.

More:The 2022 Illinois State Fair runs through Aug. 21. Here's what you need to know.

Is there anything that hasn't changed?

The CDC still recommends keeping up with COVID-19 vaccinations as a way to protect people from serious illness and to quarantine if they test positive.

Decision-making on the new recommendations will be done at the local level, with some districts opting to keep stricter guidelines than what the CDC now recommends.

"It really is still up to the schools in the individual places to adopt those policies," Josniuk said. "I imagine a lot of schools will still choose to have more rigorous guidelines for their students, but what it really comes down to is that we may be able to go back to more of a normal manner this fall."

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: A look at the new COVID-19 guidelines for the 2022-23 school year