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COVID-19 in Clayton County: What happens when there are cases at local schools?

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Dr. Michele Dikkers

By Audrey Posten, Times-Register

It was inevitable. Now a month into the school year, districts in Clayton County have had reported cases of COVID-19.

“Central had its first confirmed case of COVID two weeks ago last Thursday,” said Central Superintendent Nick Trenkamp last week. “We followed the guidance set forth from the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) in regard to contact tracing. Students found to be in close contact were sent home for a 14-day quarantine. It is important that the community knows that this is not a local decision. The 14-day quarantine is a mandate from the IDPH and all school districts are required to follow it.”

It’s the same at MFL MarMac, which had its first confirmed case two weeks ago. As of the Sept. 14 school board meeting, at least 58 kids were quarantined.

“If someone tests positive, then there is contact tracing,” superintendent Dale Crozier has stated. “The county department of health does that with us. They’ll tell us who has to go. We don’t have that decision-making authority.”

Individuals who test positive for COVID-19 will not attend school until medically cleared. Parents will be notified if their child has had direct exposure and needs to quarantine.

“Someone could just be quarantined,” Crozier said. “They might not have COVID-19, but they’re gone for 14 days.”

Students who are quarantined will receive instruction remotely through one of the district’s online learning management systems.

“We sent quite a few home with quarantine,” MFL MarMac’s middle school principal, Denise Mueller, said at the Sept. 14 school board meeting, “but our teachers picked right up on that and started Zooming with those kids immediately. They didn’t miss a beat.”

At Central, said Trenkamp, “Students on quarantine have been able to access our remote learning so they do not fall behind academically.”

That’s made easier thanks to the district’s substantial investment in a video conferencing product called OWLS that gives students at home a 360-degree view of their classroom. Students can hear their teachers and classmates respond in real-time. Money from the COVID Cares Act was used for the purchases.

Questions still abound, though. What’s considered a direct contact or exposure? Who has to quarantine? Who gets tested? When should districts consider more remote learning?

“It’s been a challenge,” acknowledged Dr. Michele Dikkers, a physician at Cornerstone Family Practice and Guttenberg Municipal Hospital and Clinics and chair of the Clayton County Board of Health. “It’s a new disease and we’re learning as we go, and maybe what we thought we knew is different now.”

Dikkers said Clayton County Public Health offered guidance to local districts before the school year started, and officials continue to be available for advice, but that individual districts were ultimately responsible for their own COVID-19 response plans.

“Most [districts] followed guidelines from the CDC, with the importance of wearing masks and the importance of cohorts—knowing where individuals are so it’s easier if you have to contact trace. This is your classroom where you stay, this is your same seat on the bus,” Dikkers explained. “They’re limiting crowds in hallways and they’ve spaced tables and desks to have less contact in classrooms.”

If someone at a school tests positive for COVID-19, Dikkers said public health works with school nurses to identify other students and staff who may have had direct contact and advise them on what to do next.

“It gets tricky,” she admitted. “If you walk past someone, is that enough?”

According to CDC guidelines, no. Direct contact is generally regarded as being within six feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes, either with or without a mask.

“Even with a mask, you can be exposed,” Dikkers said, “but it decreases the likelihood.”

There are obvious exceptions, however.

“If you’re with someone for 30 seconds and they actually spit on you, that’s enough to be exposed,” Dikkers noted. “If you stand next to someone for two minutes and they sneeze, that’s direct contact.”

Those with COVID-19 symptoms have to think back several days prior to being symptomatic, determining who they may have been in contact with during that period.

“You’re contagious two days before you show symptoms,” Dikkers said. “So we have to identify who’s been exposed and then they need to self-isolate for 14 days from the day of exposure. It could be 14 days before they show symptoms, although it’s usually much sooner.”

Quarantine could last even longer if you’re in the same household as someone with COVID-19.

Isolation, stressed Dikkers, means staying home. “You don’t get gas, you don’t visit others. Even if you feel fine, you go nowhere,” she said. “Even if you don’t have symptoms, you could carry it. Many students may do just fine, but they could take it home to their parents and grandparents.”

If someone who’s been exposed does not show symptoms, Dikkers said they will be referred to a Test Iowa site for testing, and they’ll be instructed to isolate.

“We just don’t have the capability to test everyone,” she stated.

What happens if there’s an outbreak in a school or in Clayton County as a whole? Per Gov. Kim Reynolds, districts can request to temporarily transition to full remote learning if at least 10 percent of the school population is sick (not just home isolating), or if the county’s 14-day positivity rate exceeds 15 percent.

“If a county is over 15 percent, that could be because of a care center or someone went to a party over the weekend and a bunch of adults [contracted COVID-19.] It could have nothing to do with the school,” Crozier said. “It’s that in combination with what our absentee rate is for sick people, not quarantined people.”

“If we reach that point, then we confer with county health, and if county health agrees, then we ask the Department of Education,” he added.

To date, the Iowa Department of Education has received 12 remote learning requests, half of which have been granted.

“I anticipate a time when kids will be home again,” said Dikkers. “We want kids to be in school, but if the positivity rate and absentee rate is high, then schools need to make responsible choices.”

To help mitigate the spread of COVID-19, Dikkers advised wearing face coverings.

“It’s an inconvenience, but it can save lives,” she said. “Have the expectation that students will wear them. Kids will do what their mentors and teachers do.”

“If we continue mitigation and wear masks, then we can keep things open and do normal activities while keeping the community safe,” she added.

Pam Reinig contributed to this article.

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