Colin Schlitt ‘24 | Connor Shanahan ‘24
Since the arrival of the Omicron variant, the amount of COVID-19 cases within the Upper School has risen by 264% from September to December. At the beginning of the academic year, only six Upper School students had contracted COVID-19, but in January alone, EA has recorded over fifty-one positive cases in the Upper School.
Graph courtesy of newyorktimes.com
This latest surge has led to updated policy changes for EA’s COVID-19 guidelines, including stricter punishments for wearing masks improperly, a five-day quarantine period, and a negative test for close-contacts or positive test results, and a further enforcement of the required ten-day athletic conditioning following a positive test.
Violation of the updated protocols, such as improper mask wearing, resulted in the implementation of more stringent consequences. Potential consequences included a detention or a virtual learning day.
Because the case counts at EA and in the region as a whole are already decreasing, these stricter measures were quickly relaxed. Teachers are becoming more lenient with mask protocols and less students are facing disciplinary action.
Khoa Tran ‘24 says he tested positive for the virus and explains the protocols he had to follow before returning back to the classroom, “I had to go through the seven-day mask policy, and then I had to go through a ten-day rehabilitation process to return to swimming.” The seven-day mask policy requires all students who have recently contracted the virus to wear a mask both indoors and outdoors when on campus grounds. The sports rehabilitation process lasts around ten days and monitors potential myocarditis symptoms in students after testing positive for COVID-19.
While there have been many changes for students who test positive, the classroom environment has mostly remained unchanged. Maggie Dugery ‘23 comments,“I think having virtual learners in the classroom hasn’t been a huge change because students are usually only online for five days. However, I think everyone adjusted to not having students online, so it takes some getting used to for both students and teachers.”
Clearly, however, the Omicron variant has not been as severe, and numbers are decreasing. All four Upper School grades are now cleared to attend Chapel services simultaneously. EA hopes that with this modification in COVID-19 protocols, the campus will return to normalcy within the coming months.