NEW YORK — U.S. health officials are endorsing “test-to-stay” (TTS) policies that allow close contacts of students infected with the coronavirus to remain in classrooms if they test negative.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday decided to more firmly embrace the approach, after research of such policies in the Chicago and Los Angeles areas found COVID-19 infections did not increase when schools switched to test-to-stay.
"TTS schools did not experience increases in COVID-19 incidence among students after TTS implementation, and in 20 identified outbreaks in TTS schools, no tertiary transmission was identified," read the CDC's study, which was released Friday.
Previously, the CDC had recommended that when someone in a school tests positive for COVID-19, those who were deemed to be in close contact with them should stay out of school for 10 days.
According to the CDC, new COVID-19 infections have spiked in December, as average daily infections have climbed from about 83,000 a day to nearly 120,000 a day. Deaths from the virus also remain elevated.