Bucks Co.'s Modified Quarantine For Schools: Here's What It Means

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — When children in Bucks County return to the classrooms, what happens when a student tests positive? Will all those exposed to the infected student have to quarantine at home for two weeks?

No, Bucks County health officials are recommending.

The Bucks County Health Department is recommending a "modified quarantine" process for students who were exposed to the virus but are asymptomatic.

Bucks County Health Department Director David Damsker says it's a quarantine procedure that allows a certain level of freedom on the part of the person exposed. The exposed person must wear a mask at all times and social distance as appropriate, but can attend necessary obligations such as school or work.

Damsker said the county has been employing this procedure since early on in the pandemic, after officials realized mandating all exposed to stay home for 14 days could potentially lead to a lack of police officers, emergency responders, and hospital workers.

"If they followed that guideline, we wouldn't have hospitals to go to," Damsker said.

So the modified quarantine was developed. In the school setting, it will enable less disruption for large groups of children who are asymptomatic and routinely wearing masks.

"Modified quarantine doesn't mean you can go to parties and stuff," Damsker clarified. It's strictly to allow for the exposed person to attend work and school, or buy groceries and other necessities. A mask must be worn at all times.

So far, it has been "very successful," Damsker said. "We have not documented anyone spreading this when they're on a modified quarantine."

Just three of Bucks County's school districts will be returning immediately this fall for in-person instruction. All three — Pennridge, Palisades and Quakertown — will be implementing the modified quarantine procedure, Damsker confirmed. Other districts have delayed their in-person instruction and will begin virtually.

Damsker pointed out that the county's current coronavirus numbers are very stable. "We have best numbers of five southeastern Pennsylvania counties," he said.

And while "nothing is 100 percent" county tracers have not documented anyone spreading the virus while in a modified quarantine.

While some outbreaks have been reported in college campuses across the state, including at Temple where more than 100 students recently tested positive, the virus is not typically spread in classroom environments where students are wearing masks, Damsker said. In general, it is spreading on college campuses at social events and parties, he noted.

Cases in Bucks County are primarily being traced to household contacts or social gatherings.

The modified quarantine process is a combination of being safe as well as practical, Damsker said.

The coronavirus is here for a while, Damsker noted, and if students can't regularly attend schools now, when will they ever?

Damsker said the associated impacts of isolation and quarantine — adolescent depression and anxiety — are more concerning to him from a public health perspective at this point than the coronavirus itself.

He said no children in Pennsylvania have died from coronavirus, and in Bucks County there have been no pediatric hospitalizations. "The flu has killed more kids than this has," he said, noting he supported the initial school closure so experts could better understand the virus.

But now that we have more knowledge, "I don't know much better they're (the numbers) are going to get" before reopening schools for in-person learning.