NYC Won’t Reopen Schools If Infection Rate Above 3%, Mayor Says

(Bloomberg) -- New York City must keep its Covid-19 infection rate below 3% in order for schools to reopen and stay open, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

The largest U.S. school system is on track for in-person learning in September with the city-wide infection rate 2% or below for several weeks, giving city health and school officials confidence that the 1.1 million students and more than 70,000 teachers can sustain in-class instruction, de Blasio said Friday. It will shut if it hits 3% or higher over a 7-day rolling average, he said.

The mayor vowed that individual schools would remain vigilant, with the expectation that classrooms may have to be closed when a student or teacher tests positive. The “blended approach” of a split schedule offering days of in-class and remote online learning was announced earlier this summer, with about 100,000 seats for supervised childcare for parents who can't be home during remote learning days.

Teachers and students will get priority for testing, with results available within 24 hours. If there is a positive test, that school will be closed for 24 hours for contact tracing and deep cleaning, and classes within that affected room would be shut down with its occupants quarantined and assigned to remote learning for 14 days, the mayor said. Schools will enforce physical distancing, required face coverings, daily cleaning and nightly disinfecting.

“It's an amazing undertaking for sure, but this is a city that's no stranger to huge heroic tasks,” de Blasio said. “This city has beaten back this disease to an extraordinary degree.”

The city had 65 hospital admissions of respiratory illness as of July 29, with a small percentage of patients testing positive for Covid-19, according to the city health department. Public hospital intensive-care units had 268 patients, well below the city's 375 threshold, and the citywide infection rate dipped to 1% from 2% the previous day.

The school system's rules will require all students and teachers who feel sick to get tested and remain home. Anyone showing symptoms or signs of illness will be separated and sent home. Laboratory-confirmed cases will require the affected classroom to be shut for 14 days. Two or more cases school-wide will force the entire school to shut down and switch entirely to remote online learning.

The 3% rate is lower than the 5% standard now used to measure the citywide risk of spreading infection to ensure safety, de Blasio said.

“We're one of the most densely populated centers in the country and we're going to be very cautious not to see another resurgence,” the mayor said. “If you have 5%, if we're at that kind of level, we would want the schools closed as part of a wider strategy to stop the virus from spreading.”

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