Vermilion Parish School System will use new quarantine guidelines

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, close contact to someone who is positive required a 14-day quarantine.
Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made changes to the guidance for quarantines. People who may have been exposed to COVID-19 will be able to shorten their quarantine period from 14 days to 10 days, or as few as seven days with a negative test.
The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) has adopted the changes made by the CDC, allowing systems in Louisiana to make appropriate changes. Vermilion Parish Superintendent Tommy Byler said the Vermilion Parish School System will move forward with those changes.
“We have received clearance to use the (new) quarantine guidelines,” Byler said in a post on social media.
Byler said there will be three options for those who come into close contact with a positive COVID-19 case. The first option will be remaining out for 14 days. The second option will allow students and or faculty to return after 10 days of quarantine, if they are symptom free.
“They can return on the 11th day,” Byler said.
Option three is that students or faculty members can quarantine for seven days, with a negative test.
“That negative test could be the PCR (nasal swab) or it could be the rapid test,” Byler said. “That test has to take place after the fifth day of quarantine. It will not allow you to come back to school before the seventh day.
“On the eighth day, you could return to school.”
Byler stressed, in the case of both the 10-day and seven-day options, symptoms must be monitored through the 14th day.
“Schools will be reaching out to those currently on quarantine,” Byler said.