Nearly 29% of Henrico children 12-17 have been vaccinated

(Editor's note: This article has been updated from its original version to clarify Henrico County Public Schools' quarantining process.)

Nearly 29% of all Henrico children and teens between the ages of 12 and 17 have received at least one dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, Henrico School Health Services Supervisor Robin Gilbert told the Henrico School Board May 27 – and almost 10% are fully vaccinated.

“We’re on the right path, we just need to continue that,” she said.

School system officials and state health officials will meet May 28 to discuss the possibility of offering COVID vaccinations for students and families at Henrico middle schools in the coming weeks, Gilbert told the board. School and local health district officials initially had indicated earlier this month that they weren’t planning to offer vaccinations in schools, then clarified a few days later that they were planning to do so but had simply prioritized efforts to encourage students to be vaccinated at other ongoing walk-up sites.

The last walk-up vaccination event at Richmond Raceway took place May 27; the Richmond and Henrico Health Districts now are prioritizing smaller community vaccinations events and other proactive ways to reach people who haven’t yet been vaccinated.

Because the number of cases of COVID-19 in Henrico and the region has dropped dramatically in recent weeks, the school system has dropped its 10-day quarantine requirement for people with COVID-19 symptoms, Henrico Schools Chief of Staff Beth Teigen told the board Thursday. Instead, once someone has been symptom-free for at least 24 hours (including not having a fever), he or she is permitted to return to school facilities.

The move follows guidance from the Virginia Department of Health, which allows it in areas where transmission levels are lower. The transmission risk in Henrico now is at the lower end of the “moderate” category, according to the VDH, as is the county’s total number of new cases per 100,000 people during the most recent seven-day period (38.3).

Anyone who has had close contact with a known positive case (15 minutes or more within 6 feet) still must quarantine for as long as 14 days, according to Gilbert. But once contact-tracers confirm that an exposed person has been fully vaccinated and is at least two weeks removed from his or her final dose, that person will be allowed back in school, she said. Those unvaccinated still must complete the full quarantine.

“We are jubilant that this has occurred,” Gilbert told the board, referencing the drop in transmission levels. “We are just ecstatic. We are in a great place.”

The school system’s health committee, which continues to meet weekly, determined that the system will not require the use of plexiglass shields in classrooms during summer academy programs or during the coming school year, though the shields will be available for use at the request of students or teachers, Teigen said.

During both summer programs and the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, a three-foot social distancing policy will be enforced “to the greatest extent possible,” she said.

Students in summer academy programs will eat in their classrooms or in some cases in the cafeteria, while in the fall, all students will eat in their cafeterias, Teigen said. There will not be any field trips during the summer academies, but grade-level and district-wide field trips will resume in the fall. Special trips in the coming school year (such as out-of-state band or choral trips) will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, she said.