Private High School Reopened-COVID Mitigation and Clinical Surveillance Using an Internet Application

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Epidemiology
• Infectious Disease Control

Background:

• In-person high school education requires effective COVID-19 safety measures.
• Existing recommendations like masks and distancing lack scalable surveillance for rapid disease mitigation.
• A robust system is needed to monitor and control COVID-19 prevalence and exposure in schools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a scalable surveillance solution for identifying and mitigating COVID-19 in a high school setting.
• To assess the effectiveness of an internet-based application for daily symptom and exposure reporting.
• To determine if this system, alongside other measures, could enable safe in-person education.

Main Methods:

• Implemented an internet application for daily symptom, illness, and exposure reporting by all school participants.
• Conducted physician-supervised follow-up interviews and recorded findings in daily rounds.
• Utilized daily results to permit or prohibit student and faculty entry to school, enforcing quarantine protocols.

Main Results:

• During the 2020-2021 school year, 1497 assessments were generated from 889 students and 214 faculty/staff.
• Key reasons for evaluation included COVID-19 exposure (34%), symptoms (14%), and high-risk travel (35%).
• Out of 61 COVID-19 diagnoses, only one potential in-school transmission occurred, with most infections originating from home or non-school sources.

Conclusions:

• Masks, distancing, and aggressive contact tracing via an internet application successfully prevented COVID-19 spread in a high-prevalence environment.
• This integrated approach facilitated safe in-person education.
• The findings provide a valuable framework for future safety measures against new pandemics or resistant strains.