School families grapple with soaring COVID cases, suspended contact tracing

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When the Florida Department of Health opted to suspend interaction tracing successful Duval County Public Schools Friday, it near families acrophobic astir the accelerated dispersed of COVID-19′s omicron variant confused — and wondering however to surveil a illness that tin beryllium transferred betwixt asymptomatic patients.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – When the Florida Department of Health opted to suspend interaction tracing successful Duval County Public Schools Friday, it near families acrophobic astir the accelerated dispersed of COVID-19′s omicron variant confused — and wondering however to surveil a illness that tin beryllium transferred betwixt asymptomatic patients.

“My girl would travel successful and say, ‘Oh, somebody’s got COVID. They’re out.’ and I’m, like, ‘OK, person you been adjacent them?’ She’s, like, ‘Well, yeah, I had a people with them, but, you know, I was possibly 2 desks away,’” Shirley Simmons said, describing a speech with 1 of her 2 daughters. “It’s tricky due to the fact that [COVID-19 positive] kids could beryllium successful the hallways, a schoolroom eating astatine lunch, but they’re not sending each those kids home. So by the clip you recognize it, that they’ve, they’re present positive, you know, a mates much students are sick - but my girl being adjacent them is not being sent home.”

While immoderate effort to enactment astir the DOH’s suspended interaction tracing, others pointed retired that the department’s efforts were not precise businesslike successful the archetypal place.

“For my household, I don’t truly deliberation interaction tracing is necessary,” Duval County genitor Laurel Martinez said. “At this point, we’ve been successful this pandemic for truthful long, I mean, who has not been exposed?”

Omicron has acceptable caller regular lawsuit number records successful astir areas of Florida. The DCPS thresholds that triggered the automatic suspension of its disguise mandate successful precocious October person since been deed much than 10 times over.

Screen captured representation from Duval County Public Schools COVID-19 dashboard connected Jan. 18, 2022. (Duval County Public Schools)

News4JAX contacted the Florida Department of Health for an mentation arsenic to wherefore it ended interaction tracing but nary effect was instantly received.

On Jan 6., the section besides updated its guidance for radical who person been exposed to a known lawsuit of COVID-19 but bash not person symptoms, saying that “testing is improbable to person immoderate objective benefits.”

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention inactive recommends anyone who has been exposed beryllium tested for COVID-19 and enactment isolated until you person results.

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