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Education Officials, Gov. Ricketts Expand Temporary Housing For Teachers And Other Steps To Protect Students And Staff

By News Sep 22, 2020 | 7:11 AM

Nebraska is expanding a program which provides rooms for people to quarantine in to prevent exposing high risk individuals to teachers.

Department of Health and Human Services Incident Commander Angie Ling says the Nebraska Accommodation Project helps mitigate spread.

“You need to be a resident of Nebraska, employed by any school in Nebraska, physically working on campus and work with children every day.  Additionally, a full-time member of your household must have a high-risk medical condition and you must have a documented exposure to COVID-19.”

Ling says you can apply online and within 24-hours will be transferred to a hotel to quarantine for 14 days or until circumstances change.

Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts encourages Nebraskans to get a coronavirus vaccine when it becomes available.

“The federal government will have a priority in whose going to get vaccinated.  We’ll have more information down the road. But you can imagine it will be things like health care workers, first responders and people who in vulnerable categories,” Ricketts says.

Ricketts and Nebraska Education Commissioner Matt Blomstedt also encourage children to receive the vaccine. It’s unclear whether it will become a mandated immunization for students.

Schools across Nebraska including ones in Lincoln have shown COVID-19 is not spreading in classrooms.

Blomstedt says students are getting sick during unmasked exposure outside of schools like in car rides or social events.

“But most of the cases have been discovered in students or staff, that they haven’t been spread in schools.  That’s the important part for us.”

Ricketts announced a new DHM for children who become exposed to COVID-19 in the classroom.

“If the child who is positive is masked and the other children they’re around are masked, then those other children don’t have to quarantine, they have to self monitor,” Ricketts said.

Ricketts added if the students are wearing masks, they can go back into the classroom. If either one of the students is not wearing a mask and tests positive, they will need to quarantine.