Superintendent Weekly Press Release November 13, 2020
Dear Cedar Bluffs Families,
COVID RISK LEVEL: ORANGE
For the Week of November 16th, we move further into Orange from a 2.63 to a 3.13. All three counties again moving closer to Red: Dodge from a 2.50 to a 3.00, Washington from a 2.25 to a 3.00 and Saunders from a 2.63 to a 3.38. Red COVID Risk dial starts at 3.50. Again, we shouldn’t be surprised to see this trend as the entire State continues to see record cases. As a nation we have recorded 9 straight days of over 100,000 positive cases.
There is a new DHM that went into effect on Wednesday November 11th by Governor Ricketts. This new DHM rolls back several easing measures including limiting groups to 8 instead of 10, reducing capacity to 25% for indoor events and requiring masks for all businesses where you are in close contact for more than 15 minutes and cannot social distance, indoor dinning has some exceptions. Furthermore, the new DHM puts guidelines on school activities including the upcoming Winter activities which allows household members only as spectators at school activities.
As most of you saw there was a breakthrough this week with a vaccine that is reportedly 90% effective. While this news is a relief, they still need to go through the 3 safety phases which should occur by the end of November and then apply for an emergency waiver from the FDA to put the vaccine into production. With production and distribution most are saying to look forward to the vaccine after the new year for first responders and front line workers, mid spring for others and it maybe summer before it is available widely to all Americans. Still a light at the end of the tunnel.
TOTAL POSITIVE: 14-Students, 26-Parent(s)/Family Members, 15-Staff
THIS WEEK POSITIVE: 4-Students, 3-Parent(s)/Family Members, 2-Staff CURRENT QUARANTINE: 43
Again, we continue to see positive cases in our staff, students and family members although NOT at an alarming rate. We had 4 students who tested positive with four more quarantined awaiting results, all of these were showing symptoms. The largest symptom we are starting to see is the loss of smell and taste. This can be an easy symptom to check and is a specific symptom related to the coronavirus. If your child has this symptom, please keep them home and have them tested immediately. Also, this week we had 2 staff members who were showing symptoms (loss of smell) both tested positive and 2 more staff with other related symptoms in quarantine awaiting results. For our parents and family members we had 3 positive cases and one other parent who is quarantined with their students waiting for results. Overall this week we had another 11 students and staff quarantined while we got back several other staff and students bringing our overall quarantined currently number to 43. We have seen an increase in parents choosing remote learning now that we are approaching Red and although in person education is still superior, we will continue to try to work with all our remote students. If your remote student is not being successful, you need to contact the building administrator. We currently have 33 in the secondary and 21 in the elementary doing remote learning. This includes mostly the students required to quarantine and the few who have chosen to remote learn for medical reasons. #WildcatPride