Superintendent Weekly Press Release February 19, 2021
Superintendent Weekly Press Release February 19, 2021
Dear Cedar Bluffs Families,
COVID RISK LEVEL: ORANGE
For the Week of February 22nd, the risk dial remains in Orange falling from 2.57 to 2.43. A trend seen not only in Nebraska but around the United States. There are speculations that just like other illnesses, the coronavirus could be seasonal but this theory has not been verified. Others point to doing a better job of wearing masks and with the winter months social distancing has improved as less people are venturing out. But most believe that with the number who had already been infected and now with 42.5 million people having had the vaccine we are reducing the transmission because there are just less to be infected. Although this is a great trend, the CDC warns that we still have not seen the effects of the new virus strain which has been reported in all but about 6 States in the United States. One area of really positive data reported by the Omaha World Herald is
how there has been massive drops in both cases and deaths in Nebraska nursing
homes due to the vaccine. The article states that since December, infections have
plummeted – a sign the vaccinations are working to contain the virus spread.
Dr. Bob Rauner, the chief medical officer for OneHealth Nebraska states that
with every new infection is another “roll of the dice” for a possible new more infectious, more vaccine resistant,
or more deadly strain and that is why it so important to get to herd immunity through vaccinations. The DHHS website shows that 6.8% of Nebraskan have now received at least one dose of the vaccine. Nebraska ranks 45th in States in administering the first dose but ranks 19th in States for administering both doses by percentage of population. In this report that came out February 18th from the World Health Organization: https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/what-is-an-endemic-virus states that COVID-19 will eventually become an Endemic which means, just like the flu, it will be with us in a constant way moving forward and just like the flu, the COVID vaccine could become commonplace to get a yearly booster shot. Originally both Moderna and Pfizer had shared data showing the first dose gave those that were vaccinated about 52% immunity and then the second dose brought that immunity up to 94% for Moderna and 95% for Pfizer. Now in a new report released it shows it is possible that the first dose provides 90% immunity by day 21 after getting the vaccine. If this is the case, the CDC may change their recommendation and have everyone receive only the first dose so we can get more people immune faster. “We found that the vaccine effectiveness was still pretty much zero until about 14 days after people were vaccinated. But then after day 14 immunity rose gradually day by day to about 90% at day 21 and then didn’t improve any further. All the observed improvement was before any second injection. This shows that a single dose of vaccine is highly protective, although it can take up to 21 days to achieve this.”
TOTAL POSITIVE: 46-Students, 61-Parent(s)/Family Members, 31-Staff
THIS WEEK POSITIVE: 0-Students, 0-Parent(s)/Family Members, 0-Staff CURRENT QUARANTINE: 0
Updates from last week: the one student who was awaiting results of his COVID test did come back negative.
For this week we have ZERO students, staff and parent/family members with positive tests and no one in quarantine. It’s amazing! #WildcatPride