Could Fresno schools close again due to Delta surge? Doctor, school leaders weigh in
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Good morning! It’s Monday, Nov. 13.
Since Fresno Unified campuses opened back up to students nearly a month ago, there have been 784 confirmed cases of COVID-19 throughout the district, including staff and students.
With ICUs filling up and pediatric cases rising due to the highly contagious Delta variant, could that mean schools close again as they did in early 2020?
During a live-streamed panel with The Fresno Bee’s Education Lab last week, Dr. John Zweifler, a physician working with the county’s health department, said closing schools again would be “an absolute last resort.”
Even then, it may be on a case-by-case basis, he said.
If schools are unable to keep up with the workload it takes to contact trace, quarantine, and test, “then that would be a situation where we would think about closing.”
Much of the disease’s transmission is coming from the community and not from schools, he said. But there are a few exceptions.
“We’ve had a couple schools where they’ve literally had hundreds of kids who are on some type of quarantine because of the number of cases,” Zweifler said. But no Fresno County school has had to completely close yet.
Modified quarantine
Fresno Unified is working on implementing modified quarantine rules to keep more classrooms in session, Fresno Unified public information officer Nikki Henry said during the Q&A panel.
Modified quarantine is active at 50 out of 106 school sites, according to Henry.
If a student tests positive for COVID-19 and everyone was wearing their masks (which are mandatory), then other students may remain in the classroom as long as they test negative on the fifth day after exposure, Zweifler explained. This is an alternative to sending home every student and teacher in the classroom.
But if a second person in the class tests positive within that time, and it cannot be traced to a source outside the classroom, then the case would be considered classroom-spread, and the rest of the class would be sent home to quarantine.
“Particularly in your middle schools and high schools where a single student is going to six or seven classes and is in clubs and in sports, where it can easily lead to dozens of other close contacts, you can imagine the kind of the ripple effect from that,” Zweifler said.
Henry said so far, about 30 classrooms have had to quarantine all their students.
Fresno Teachers Association President Manuel Bonilla said 30 might not seem like a lot, but more classrooms than that are being impacted because of individual students who are quarantining.
It forces teachers to send home packets of work or attempt to teach simultaneously online and in-person to try and keep kids learning.
“When kids are sent home for quarantine ... 10 days out of the classroom is very disruptive,” Henry said.
The district is also facing a shortage of rapid antigen tests due to nationwide manufacturing problems.
“We have maybe 30-40,000 (tests), and with a district of 70,000 students, those can go rather quickly,” she said.
Closing schools?
Zweifler said he believes schools have done “a fantastic job working through this, and I’m confident that it will get better from here.”
“I’m a little nervous about some of the things, (such as) football. You know, there’s a lot of people getting together, and I think there’s some risks out there, but I’m confident that we’re going to get through this without having to close schools.”
The full “Back in School and COVID: What Fresno Parents Need to Know” Ed Lab Live Q&A can be watched here.
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This story was originally published September 13, 2021 at 8:37 AM.