EdNC. Essential education news. Important stories. Your voice.

Search ednc.org

New DHHS guidance changes COVID-19 recommendations for schools

Share this story

Our republishing policy

EdNC is a nonprofit, online, daily, independent newspaper. All of EdNC’s content is open source and free to republish. Please use the following guidelines when republishing our content.
  • Our content must be republished in full. If your organization uses a paywall, the content must be provided in full for free.
  • Credit our team by including both the author name and EdNC.org in the byline. Example: Alex Granados, EdNC.org.
  • If republishing the story online, please provide a link to EdNC.org or a link to the original article in either the byline or credit line.
  • The original headline of the article must be used. Allowable edits to the content of the piece include changes to meet your publication’s style guide and references to dates (i.e. this week changed to last week). Other edits must be approved by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
  • Photos and other multimedia elements (audio, video, etc.) may not be republished without prior permission. Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you are interested in sharing a multimedia element.
  • If you republish a story, please let us know by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you have any questions. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Canonical tag

Please include the following canonical tag in the <head> of the republished story.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.ednc.org/2022-02-10-new-dhhs-guidance-includes-big-changes-to-covid-19-recommendations/">

HTML content

This includes the title, byline, content, and tracking pixel required for republishing this story.

Copy & paste HTML
This story is tagged:
An empty classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic in November 2020. Caroline Parker/EducationNC

Update Feb. 11, 2022, 1:25 p.m.: In a press release today, House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said that as soon as lawmakers are done with redistricting, “we will be advancing legislation in the House to give parents the ability to opt-out of mask requirement.”

Currently, masking decisions are up to individual districts. See original story below.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) made big changes today to school COVID-19 guidelines, which will mean fewer missed school days for students.

The updated Strong SchoolsNC Public Health Toolkit eliminates contact tracing and the practice of keeping asymptomatic people out of school after exposure to COVID-19, assuming they haven’t tested positive.

Sign up for the EdWeekly, a Friday roundup of the most important education news of the week.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

“We are committed to ensuring North Carolinians have the guidance and information necessary to balance their risk during each stage of the pandemic and learn to live with COVID-19,” said DHHS Secretary Kody H. Kinsley in a press release.

“Keeping kids in the classroom remains a top priority. As we have done throughout the pandemic, we evaluate which tools are most effective to protect students and staff,” he said. “This is the right approach for this point in the pandemic and includes flexibility for local schools and health departments to use data to make informed decisions and respond to local conditions.”

The change comes the same day that House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, sent a letter to Gov. Roy Cooper asking him to “repeal the guidelines that force healthy kids to stay home and effectively mandate masks in schools.”

The updated guidance from DHHS recommends that masks be worn inside by all people age 2 and older “in areas of high or substantial transmission, as defined by the CDC.”

According to the state’s dashboard, as of Feb. 9, over 3,600 people are hospitalized with COVID-19.

Sign up for the EdDaily to start each weekday with the top education news.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.