Dr. Lisa Piercey, Tennessee health Commissioner,
Tennessee won’t publicize COVID-19 cases by individual school
by Kaylin JorgeTuesday, July 28th 2020 - https://fox17.com
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WZTV) — Tennessee health officials said Tuesday they won’t be publishing COVID-19 cases by individual schools.
“The department will not be publishing that list, but I fully expect schools will often times be able to tell parents and it will be their responsibility,” Dr. Lisa Piercey, Tennessee health Commissioner, said.
When the pandemic first broke out, Tennessee did not publicize COVID-19 cases at nursing homes and long term facilities, but changed course after getting the go-ahead from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, officials said.
“Until CMS gave us clearance to do that, we didn’t feel comfortable putting that out because of the risk of re-identification,” Dr. Piercey said.
Dr. Piercey pointed to an example in which schools have already notified parents of COVID-19 cases: Alcoa City Schools in East Tennessee have already opened and had its first case of COVID-19. Parents were notified through an email and those in contact with the case were notified, the schools said.
“Just like in nursing homes, schools can choose to disclose that if we want, we just saw that happen in Alcoa City Schools, and I think it’s highly implausible that in the age of communication and information sharing that we have that it will be a secret if any case comes in a school,” Dr. Piercey said.
According to guidance for school administrators from the Centers for Disease Control regarding communicating with student families: “Notification when there are COVID-19 cases in the school (when communicating about the health status of students, schools should take care to avoid disclosing personally identifiable information and should follow all applicable privacy requirements, including those of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act).”
This comes as Gov. Lee released back to school guidelines amid COVID-19 on Tuesday. Under those guidelines for a 14-day quarantine, “Anyone who has been within 6 feet of someone who has COVID-19 for 10 minutes or more must quarantine themselves at home for 14 days from the last time they were with that person. These time periods do not change with a doctor’s note or with a negative test.”
In its guidelines, the CDC says those in the same group should be tested: “If a student, teacher, or staff member tests positive for SARS-CoV-2, those in the same cohort/group should also be tested and remain at home until receiving a negative test result or quarantine. This helps prevent a disruption to the rest of the school and community by limiting the exposure.”
FOX 17 News is your Back to School headquarters amid COVID-19.
