D.C. Health has elaborated on its coronavirus quarantine guidance amid confusion over how to handle family members of students who test positive.
Dr. LaQuandra S. Nesbitt, the District’s Department of Health director, in response to a letter from D.C. Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) asking for more information about the procedures, said students with a sibling residing in the same household who has tested positive are considered close contacts and must also quarantine, WTOP reported.
“Household members including siblings have always been considered close contacts by our guidances,” the agency said, WTOP reported. “What is occurring in the update is that D.C. Health will be elaborating on the current guidance to provide more explicit granular instruction to schools as how to handle multiple different scenarios involving siblings in response to requests.”
Nesbitt said the updated guidance should be ready by next week.
The Henderson letter is in response to testimony Tuesday at a virtual hearing of the council’s Committee of the Whole on school reopening, in which parents, educators and council members railed against the confusion about the guidelines.
