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CDC Prevention Strategies, Video Analytics, & ESSER $ - Oh My!

By Colleen Gallagher posted 05-10-2021 11:41 AM

  

We know districts are actively implementing steps to follow the CDC's guidance for K-12 to reduce transmission of COVID. Did you know video security technology and data analytics can be a good use of your ESSER funds to help?

CDC Prevention Strategies

Let's review. The CDC says prevention strategies are critical and outlines these five key prevention strategies as essential to safe delivery of in-person instruction and to help prevent COVID-19 transmission in schools:

  1. Universal and correct use of masks
  2. Physical Distancing
  3. Handwashing and respiratory etiquette
  4. Cleaning and maintaining healthy facilities
  5. Contact tracing in combination with isolation and quarantine.

Next-gen Video Security Cameras and Data Analytics

Many organizations have implemented next generation video security cameras that integrate with data analytics. But since COVID, they have benefited from surprising new applications that address two of the prevention strategies above: #4 - cleaning and #5 - contact tracing.  

Cleaning Priority

Because the video cameras "see" where people have been and know "when" they were there, the integrated video security system and data analytics dashboard can show you a custom floorplan map of people traffic over a period of time. Wouldn't you like to know which rooms had people in them in the last day, or since you last cleaned? That helps you prioritize your cleaning tasks, saving you time and money.  

Contact Tracing

Most of us are familiar with the traditional method: Contact tracers ask the positive person to name all close contacts going back a couple of days before symptoms started. I can't remember yesterday's breakfast, let alone name who I was near several days ago! But the video security cameras with data analytics system has the capability of seeing where I was, who I was around, and for how long. Was I masked? Were the other people masked? Rather than sift painstakingly through days of footage, the technology can more quickly identify times and people of interest the positive person was near for the contact tracing process to be more efficient.  

ESSER $

Developing and implementing systems to improve preparedness and response efforts is one of the eligible uses of both ESSER I and ESSER II funds. This means that districts can tap that funding now. Taking advantage of this technology is a smart way to "implement and layer prevention strategies,” per the CDC's operational strategy for K-12 schools. As we watch ESSER III unfold, the ability to use funds for "facility upgrades" may also play here - stay tuned.  

However you do it, the bonus is that this technology also enhances your physical security, ensuring your schools are a safer and healthier place for students, staff, administration, and the community.  

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