Outbreak
We managed to get through the pandemic with only a handful of cases at the school until now. We’re notified each time the school is notified about a case, and there have been three letters since the kids returned to the school in September after being out of the building for 16 months.
Go us.
And then a few days ago, we received a letter listing 13 cases. All in the same letter. They were one after the other.
A day or two after that, another letter with another 14 cases. Different from the ones before because they list the dates the person was last in the school and the date they tested positive.
The twins told me that people are missing — a lot of people are missing; sometimes half their class. And it isn’t clear if those people are missing because they’re sick or got their booster or are choosing not to re-enter the building with active cases in the community.
The horse is out of the barn at this point, so they’re still attending school. The cases seem to be mostly on the sports teams where they take off their masks to play or from Thanksgiving dinners where people gathered and took off their masks to eat. It’s a testament to mandatory masking in the classroom that more people aren’t ill. Thank you, masks.
But it’s nerve-wracking to get the letters. Even though they’re fully vaccinated. Even though they’re almost boosted. Even though we’re fully vaccinated and boosted. None of that matters when you see the long list of positive tests.
7 comments
That sounds like us at the beginning of the fall semester, though we don’t get letters– we have to go online every day and look at how many cases there are and match them up against the kids’ schedules (they don’t keep a record, so we have to look every day). We had a few weeks with no cases which was really nice, but since Thanksgiving it’s been ~1/day, though so far nobody in DC1’s classes.
Omggggg YES. The masking is what is keeping people safe. It’s outbreaking here along with the Flu because the H1N1 strain mutated after the vaccines were made. SO many people are against masking in schools and it poses me off. It hurts NO ONE and protects EVERYONE.
I’m frontlines and have treated thousands of positive patients over the course of this, and I’ve never had to get tested because there haven’t been any breaches in transmission. Because we wear masks (around all the other ppe). Only 2 people in my household out of 7 have had to be tested, one was a cold but we tested per school protocol, and one was exposed to Covid and Flu this past week at school this past week. She tested positive for Flu A (H1N1) and her exposure was traced to the lunch table at school, where they sit unmasked. So yeah. It’s gonna be a long winter.
Oh, and my husband goes in and out of dozens of houses for work every day. He has never had a reason to get tested because he ALWAYS wears a mask.
We had two outbreak situations in my daughters’ school this semester. One was immediately following Halloween when way too many people celebrated like this is The Before Times – indoors, unmasked, large groups. There were enough cases at the school to send two classes remote. I kept them home for 2.5 days because I knew there were many, many more kids exposed to the positive cases than were remote. My area doesn’t require quarantining of exposures unless symptomatic (don’t even get me started on this brilliant reasoning). So my kids were sitting next to kids who had 100% been exposed and would then unmask to eat lunch.
The week of thanksgiving my older daughter had 4 cases in her class but it wasn’t sent remote. I kept them home for a day then as well, to avoid exposure to those who hadn’t yet tested positive.
However that was pre vaccination. I don’t know what I will do now that they are vaccinated. It’s all so scary and hard.
It’s so disappointing that CDC is now pushing test to stay, right as Omicron exponentially grows. Never gonna end. Not sending my kids back any time soon. Vaccines/boosting are not enough. Also without surveillance testing only those who voluntarily test and voluntarily report are documented. So true numbers are schools are probably far higher. 🥴
In our school there have been multiple cases in the classroom, especially my kids 1st grade but so far we’ve been healthy. Even made it all the way to break without the school or classes shutting down. Happy about that!
The district north of us went remote this week because of an outbreak. I’m counting our lucky stars that we made it through this week with minimal cases in the schools. Not sure what will happen in January … and we’re waiting for the inevitable announcement about remote wintersession now here.