School Quarantine, COVID Updates Provided To Fairfax Supervisors

FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA — Fairfax County health and school officials provided an update on COVID-19 data and student quarantines to the Board of Supervisors' Health and Human Services Committee Tuesday.

Dr. Gloria Addo-Ayensu, director of the Fairfax County Health Department, told the board the Fairfax Health District's COVID-19 transmission is classified as high. Tuesday's seven-day rate of infections was 113.31 per 100,000 people. By comparison, Northern Virginia as a whole has a rate of 127.6 per 100,000, Virginia has a rate of 292.8 per 100,000, and the U.S. has a rate of 300 per 100,000. The Fairfax Health District covers Fairfax County, the towns of Vienna, Herndon and Clifton, and independent cities of Falls Church and Fairfax.

As for vaccinations, 811,460 people in the Fairfax Health District have at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and 739,927 are fully vaccinated. The health department estimates almost 400,000 people remain unvaccinated.

"While we often highlight the successes in vaccinating more than three quarters of those who are eligible to receive vaccine, our work is far from over," said Addo-Ayensu. As you can see because there are 400,000 people in the county who are not yet vaccinated. That is a problem because it allows for disease transmission and the potential for variants arising."

Addo-Ayensu noted that the under 12 age group not yet eligible for the vaccine represents about 195,000 of the 400,000 not yet vaccinated.

The health director said she's encouraged by the 83.4 percent with at least one dose in the 12 to 17 age group. In preparation for ages 5 to 11 becoming eligible for the vaccine, the health department plans to work with schools in the same way when ages 12 to 17 became eligible.

On the topic of booster shots, the health department is awaiting Centers for Disease Control and Virginia Department of Health guidance. The FDA recommended booster shots for people 65 and over and people at higher risk for severe disease but not for the general population. The CDC advisory committee still needs to make a recommendation before VDH provides guidance. Third doses are already available to immunocompromised individuals.

School update

While most students have returned to in-person learning this fall, contact tracing investigations have resulted in some students being paused from in-person learning. The health department and Fairfax County Public Schools are making changes in response to families' frustrations about students being out of school for quarantine reasons. Schools will send a list of potentially exposed people who need to be paused for in-person learning to the health department. Schools are sending more directed and standardized information with case reports to the health department. Addo-Ayensu says this reduces the number of students who need to pause in-person learning and allow the containment team to better focus on those who may need a quarantine.

"We do recognize that there has been a lot of frustration...that had to do with the process as well as the communication challenges that we have been working on quite aggressively over the last two weeks, a little over two weeks now, together with our schools," said Addo-Ayensu.

After receiving the list, the health department verifies the case and collects information on potential contacts. The health department then recommends a quarantine to exposed individuals. Digital communication is one recent enhancement so families can know the student's status quickly.

A few weeks ago, the health department started using a digital vaccination verification system to allow fully vaccinated people who are asymptomatic and identified as close contacts to upload vaccination information and be cleared to return to school. From Sept. 2 to Sept. 16, 1,551 vaccination verification requests were submitted, and 80.5 percent of them were cleared with no quarantine.

The health department then communicates to schools which students are cleared to return and which should be in virtual learning. The quarantine period as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Virginia Department of Health is 14 days.

Michelle Boyd, the FCPS assistant superintendent of special services, said it is a joint effort between schools and the health department to make improvements regarding pauses of quarantined students. Boyd said by the third day of a COVID-related absence, elementary student would have access to streaming or a recording of instruction for English, language arts and math and supplement with asynchronous work and communication with teachers. At the secondary level, students would have streaming or recording of instruction for core classes by the third day of a COVID-related absence with asynchronous work and communication with teachers.

"We realize that if students are out for 14 days, and honestly some of our students if they're out for fewer days, it has a significant impact," said Boyd. "We want to make sure that we're working diligently to support that continuity of instruction and making sure that they have connection with their instruction for that support."

From Aug. 1 to Sept. 15, there have been 840 cases and 2,833 contacts directed to quarantine at Fairfax County Public Schools and Falls Church City Public Schools. That includes 504 cases at the elementary level under age 12 (1,018 contacts quarantined), 55 cases at the middle level ages 12 to 13 (389 contacts quarantined), and 157 cases at the high level ages 13 and up (1,328 contacts quarantined). Among all staff, there have been 124 cases and 98 contacts quarantined.