Superintendent Weekly Press Release February 12, 2021
Dear Cedar Bluffs Families,
COVID RISK LEVEL: ORANGE
For the Week of February 12th, the risk dial remains in Orange unchanged from last week at 2.57 with all counties also stating the same as last week at 2.57. The DHHS vaccination website shows that as of February 10th, 5.3% of Nebraskan have received at least the first dose of vaccine. Nebraska has fallen behind in rolling out vaccines, falling from being ranked 19th to 50th in the United States. As you can see from this graph Nebraska has received 350,500 doses and administered 246,623 which is an average of 6,948 per day with the average delay of 15 days from the time they get the dose to putting that dose in an arm. I know Three Rivers Health District has done better than this but as a State we continue to not be as efficient as other States. And while we at Cedar Bluffs Public School have roughly 70% of our staff signed up to be vaccinated, there are many areas of State where this percentage is much lower. The CDC recommends 85% of American’s be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. Some are concerned about the safety of the vaccine, I like this illustration that shares the risk of dying in car accident is .0115% versus dying from COVID which is .1425%. Looking at the bar graph supports the fact that the vaccine is vital. The bar graph also shows a .0005% and a .0003% chance of a serious reaction with zero death associated with getting the vaccine. If you wear a seat belt, you should want the vaccine.
TOTAL POSITIVE: 46-Students, 61-Parent(s)/Family Members, 31-Staff
THIS WEEK POSITIVE: 2-Students, 0-Parent(s)/Family Members, 0-Staff CURRENT QUARANTINE: 3
Updates from last week: The one staff member who was in quarantine awaiting results did indeed test positive. All of the parents who were quarantined awaiting their results came back negative.
For this week we can again report zero staff as positive, luckily our staff has stayed relatively safe with none in quarantine and none requiring testing this week. We have had 2 students return positive test results and have one more student awaiting results. Earlier in the week we had another student test which quarantined their siblings, having tested negative all of those students have returned to school. We had no reports of any parent or family members testing positive. We still have one student from last week that will be in quarantine for part of next week and the two positive students from this week won’t return until the 18th, leaving us with 3 total in quarantine. Although we are seeing a downturn in infections the CDC reports that in the next couple of weeks we will see a resurgence from the new variants that have now entered the United States. These variants are more transmissible than the original COVID 19 strain and every time the virus is transmitted, there is a chance of mutation. This is why it is still incredibly important we continue to wear masks and social distance. The CDC released new guidance about wearing 2 masks or at least making sure when wearing one mask that it is properly fitted to help with limiting the transmission of the virus. This article shows that if both an infected person and uninfected person are wearing masks there is a 96.5% reduction in transmission: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/world/double-mask-protection-cdc.html?auth=link-dismiss-google1tap. To prove this point, Dr. Bob Rauner showed this graph that illustrates the difference in Omaha (blue line) and Lincoln (red line) where mask mandates have
been put in place and despite being more dense in population, both have a lower
death per 100k than the other 87 counties (black line) and the tri-county region
of Kearney, Grand Island and Hastings (gold line). Be safe! #WildcatPride
