Some students are testing positive for COVID-19 as schools reopen. Here’s where
After going back to school for the first time in months, a child in Indiana tested positive for COVID-19, officials say.
The test results came after the student spent part of the school day at Greenfield Central Junior High, the Indianapolis Star reported last week. Greenfield-Central Community Schools said officials isolated the child and identified anyone who may have been in contact, according to the Daily Reporter.
The case wasn’t unique.
Schools in at least four states recently have reported students who went back to school getting sick from the coronavirus. Many of the campuses — in Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi and North Carolina — asked children who may have been exposed to the disease to stay home.
Nationwide, districts have weighed returning to in-person classes for the fall semester. When the coronavirus started its spread across the United States, some schools closed down and started offering classes virtually.
How are schools responding?
At least five Indianapolis-area school systems reported positive cases in the first week of reopening, according to the Indianapolis Star.
In Georgia, the Cherokee County School District said it was reaching out to anyone who may have been in “close contact” with a Sixes Elementary student who tested positive for COVID-19, WSB-TV reported Tuesday. The classroom is being sanitized, and 20 other students will transition to online learning as they quarantine for two weeks.
In the same Atlanta-area district, a picture taken outside Etowah High School shows students not wearing face masks, McClatchy News previously reported.
Also in Georgia, at least 260 employees of nearby Gwinnett County Schools got coronavirus infections. The district is having online-only classes when school starts Aug. 12, according to McClatchy News.
Cases were linked to other campuses across the South.
In North Carolina, all fourth-graders at Thales Academy in Wake Forest will be in quarantine after a case was reported at the private school in the Raleigh area, The News & Observer reported this week.
And in northern Mississippi, five coronavirus cases have been linked to Corinth High School, which has done contact tracing, the district wrote on social media.
“It’s going to happen regardless when schools open,” one person said on the school system’s Facebook page. “I am thankful for all the caution the district is taking to help ensure safety as much as possible.”
But some have been cautious of allowing children to go back to campuses in places where COVID-19 is widespread or that don’t have adequate testing, The New York Times reported.
“Every child that I know lives in a home with an adult,” Dr. Harry Heiman, a clinical associate professor at Georgia State University, told the newspaper. “The idea that you can safely reopen schools and not in fact worsen spread is not based on science. It’s based on wishful thinking.”
This story was originally published August 5, 2020 at 3:18 PM with the headline "Some students are testing positive for COVID-19 as schools reopen. Here’s where."
