More than 250 Austin High School students, teachers and staff who are learning and teaching in person on campus showed up Monday to get a COVID-19 rapid test after the Austin district shuttered the school for three days due to the rise in of positive cases.
Only four tests came back positive, including one that already was a suspected positive, Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde told school board members Monday night.
“That is good supporting information that we did not have a rampant cases throughout the school,” she said.
Testing will continue at the campus Tuesday and Wednesday but based on data as of Monday, Elizalde told school board members the situation appears safe to reopen Thursday.
“Given what I know right now, I would not be leaning toward closing Thursday and Friday. I would reopen Thursday and Friday,” she said.
Elizalde said she will examine data that come out of Wednesday’s testing before making the final decision.
Austin Public Health officials told the district last week after contract tracing was conducted that they did not believe there was evidence of internal transmission on the campus and the district could keep the school open, Elizalde said, but she made the decision “out of an abundance of caution.” The district announced in a letter to families Friday it would close the school Monday through Wednesday.
Monday’s new cases brings the cumulative total for that campus to 20, based on the district’s COVID-19 dashboard data that showed earlier in the day that there were 16 as of Sunday.
“We continue to see no evidence of the schools being part of the transmission or the spread,” Elizalde said. “However, whatever happens in our community ultimately, obviously, could be a portion of how cases come on to schools. So we’re going to continue to monitor that closely.”
The school district last week launched a rapid COVID-19 testing program. The school district offers the nasal swab tests free of charge to students, teachers and staff members who are learning and working in person on campuses and begin to show coronavirus-related symptoms, as well as those who might have come in close contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus. Students must have permission from their parents or guardians to be tested. The rapid tests, which can give results within 15 minutes, are part of a state effort that aims to curb the spread of the coronavirus in schools.
Since the Austin school district reopened Sept. 8, the district has had 171 cumulative cases, with 54 of those occurring in the last week. About a quarter of the district’s 75,000 students are attending school in person.
A handful of campuses in the Manor and Del Valle school districts also have closed in the last two weeks due to the spread of the coronavirus.
Travis County has a positivity rate — the percentage of people testing positive for COVID-19 among those tested — of 4.2%. The county has seen a 54% increase in infections in the last 14 days, with 2,392 new cases.
Local and national health experts have cautioned not to have schools open unless the area’s positivity rate is less than 5%, and some districts across the country are keeping their school doors closed. On Thursday, Williamson County announced it had moved into the “orange” phase of its pandemic response due to the rise in new infections and the county’s positivity rate. Under that phase, the county recommends schools offer only virtual learning to all students. However, the Texas Education Agency requires school districts provide in-person learning to any student who wants it. And Texas school districts can only close campuses for five days due to the spread of the virus.
“While there really isn’t a defined explanation, the general rule is if there’s any suspicion of internal transmission on a campus, or you’re having difficulty doing the contact tracing…then you are allowed to close the campus,” Elizalde said. “It has to be done on an individual campus-to-campus basis.”
Credit: Source link
