As schools return to classes next week, they will do so in mostly pre-pandemic form. Marion County Public Health Director Kim Dorn says that after meetings with school officials, Public Health will also be scaling back their roles in schools this year.

“We met with school nurses last week. We’re not providing isolation and quarantine guidelines, we don’t have orders to do that. It will look very much like how we handle flu. If a school has more than 10 percent of the kids or staff out, they’re going to contact us, and we’ll see what we can do to help them out with that. Otherwise, it is really up to applicable law and schools’ communicable disease policy regarding who stays in school, who is sent home, that kind of stuff.”

Marion County Public Health has ended case counts and contact tracing, and will provide general guidance for those who test positive for COVID-19. Hear the latest with Marion County Public Health on today’s Let’s Talk Knoxville.