Ricketts Clarifies Student Quarantine Rules

Gov. Pete Ricketts is clarifying the state’s policy on when students have to quarantine, and when they can continue to attend school after another student tests positive for COVID-19.

The clarification is contained in a new Directed Health Measure signed Friday. In a news conference Monday, Ricketts explained what it means for other children in a classroom where one student has tested positive.

“It essentially says that if the child who is positive is masked and the other children they’re around is (sic) masked, then those other children don’t have to quarantine. They have to self-monitor. And what that difference is as long as they’re wearing masks, they can go back into the classroom. The difference would be that if either party is unmasked, then they are going to have to quarantine,” Ricketts said.

The student who tests positive will still be required to isolate for 10 days.

Some schools appear to be already following the requirements laid out in the directed health measure. David Jespersen of the Department of Education said the new DHM was intended to promote clarity and consistency across the state. Both Centers for Disease Control guidelines and Omaha Public Schools, which is moving toward resuming in-person schooling, define close contact as being within 6 feet of someone for 15 minutes, making no mention of whether someone was wearing a mask.

Ricketts said schools can still implement stricter policies if they want to, in consultation with local public health districts. Teresa Anderson of the Central District Public Health Department in Grand Island said schools should still consider requiring students who’ve been exposed to quarantine for 14 days after their last exposure, depending on the circumstances.

“We’re still going to be looking at how close was everyone sitting to everyone else and did they share – let’s say they shared eating utensils or something like that perhaps. Or the person who was positive had a lot of symptoms and was coughing around their mask. Then we’re going take that into consideration when we determine who should self-monitor and who needs to be quarantined. But the default is we’re going to follow the guidelines within the DHM,” Anderson said.

On another subject, Ricketts said Nebraska will not require the general population to be vaccinated for COVID-19 when a vaccine becomes available. Education Commissioner Matt Blomstedt said schools are still evaluating whether to require it for students.