Louisville-area students who are vaccinated, asymptomatic are exempt from quarantine

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- More schools are making the move to online learning as COVID-19 cases and subsequent quarantines increase among students. But parents aren't always notified if their child was exposed.

School districts said if a child is fully-vaccinated, their parents won't be notified if they're considered a close contact and not showing any symptoms. Those students are exempt from quarantine.

Over the past week and a half, Hardin County Schools has had 158 positive cases, 130 in students. Nearly 750 students and staff are in quarantine, and half of those people came in close contact with someone who tested positive somewhere outside of school.

"That may have come from someone at home, Aunt Lucy's house or Grandma's or church or wherever," said John Wright, director of public relations for Hardin County Schools.

In New Albany Floyd County Schools, there are more than 100 positive cases, with more than 1,000 quarantined. As of Friday, 644 students have tested positive at Jefferson County Public Schools, and 2,967 are quarantined.

And the week of Aug. 16 alone, Greater Clark County Schools had 63 positive cases with 455 quarantined.

"If I were diagnosed, and you were within 3 feet of me for more than 15 minutes, even though you wore a mask, that still falls under the CDC's guidance of being in direct contact," Wright said.

JCPS said it will notify families the same day someone tests positive unless it's a weekend. The school nurse at those schools will do the contact tracing.

"If you bring in a negative test, then you can come back sooner than those 14 days," Wright said of Hardin County's policy.

The Indiana State Department of Health said people who are symptomatic — whether they've been tested at all — must stay home for at least 10 days.

All four of these districts have a COVID-19 dashboard. Hardin County just launched its Monday.

"We just were getting calls asking for those numbers, and knowing what we know about the spread of this disease and knowing what we know about the importance of everybody being on the same page, we felt it was important to do that," Wright said.