LAS CRUCES — Las Cruces public schools will follow the latest state guidelines for COVID-19 protocols that will shorten quarantine requirements and define what it means to be vaccinated.
Under updated guidance from the New Mexico Public Education Department released Wednesday, and in accordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention protocol, the quarantine period for students and staff exposed to COVID-19 has been reduced from 10 to 5 days.
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LCPS will adopt these guidelines on Tuesday, January 18, after Martin Luther King Jr.’s holiday on Monday. Students who were previously isolated or quarantined and have met the new five-day deadline can return on Tuesday provided their symptoms have improved and they have not had a fever in the past 24 hours without antipyretic medication.
The NMPED toolkit has also updated the definition of a current vaccination status. A person is considered current if they received a booster vaccination before January 17th. Individuals are eligible for a booster dose if they are five months after their second dose of either Pfizer or Moderna or two months after their first dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
School staff have four weeks to update if entitled. New Mexico requires public school staff to be either up to date on the COVID-19 vaccination or to take weekly surveillance tests. Close contacts of people who have tested positive but are current do not need to be quarantined.
The test-to-stay program will remain in place under the new guidelines. This program allows close school contacts to continue coming to school and participating in school activities if they test negative on the three required post-exposure testing days.
As of Friday afternoon, LCPS has reported 679 new positive COVID-19 cases district-wide since schools returned Monday. Of those 679, 593 are student cases and 86 are employee cases.
For the latest LCPS COVID-19 news, visit returnplan.lcps.net/.
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