Opposition to Oklahoma’s first-in-the-nation, temporary in-school quarantine program is growing.
Democratic lawmakers and the 40,000-member Oklahoma Education Association have put out statements against the proposal to let students exposed to someone with COVID-19 at school spend their two-week quarantine in school but segregated from other students and subject to frequent testing.
Dr. Dwight Sublett, president of the Oklahoma Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the antigen test to be used in the program still has a higher false negative rate than other methods.
"All you’ve got to do is have one false negative in there who actually is positive, you throw them in the room with 20 kids for six hours, you’ve probably infected a good portion of those kids. It’s that contagious," Sublett said Monday during a regular discussion hosted by the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy.
Sublett said improved coronavirus testing could make a difference in getting kids back in school sooner.
"Get a test that can be done at home, inexpensive, accurate – we get that sort of thing, that’s going to be a big step forward. We’re not there yet. I just think it’s too risky, and I think the rest of the medical community is there. I just – I wish that was the case where we didn’t have to keep kids home from school. They need to be there," Sublett said.
The in-school program is being allowed through Dec. 23. The state wants to use information from the program to help come up with policies for the rest of the school year.
Mustang Public Schools became the first in the state to agree to it, but as of their return to in-person learning on Monday, no students were participating yet.
