42 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the past week at these 30 Wake County schools
The Wake County school system reported 42 new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the past week, including six cases at Broughton High School in Raleigh.
The latest update to the school district’s COVID-19 metrics page on Thursday comes as Wake brought all elementary school grade levels back on campus this week for the first time since March 13. The update also comes days after the school board approved a plan to bring back students on all grade levels for at least some in-person instruction next semester.
There have been 93 cases reported by the district since Oct. 26, when the first students began returning for in-person instruction. Wake updates the dashboard weekly. This week’s total is up from the 26 new cases reported last week.
The latest Wake numbers come as North Carolina reported Thursday a record 1-day total of new COVID-19 cases.
Individual schools have been notifying families when they’re told that a person associated with the school has tested positive. Wake’s dashboard doesn’t include several of those cases because the results haven’t been confirmed yet or the person mistakenly told the school they had tested positive, according to Lisa Luten, a district spokeswoman.
Broughton has 8 cases this month
Wake’s high schools are not offering in-person instruction this semester. But student-athletes and school staff are on campus. Several COVID-19 cases in the district, including at Broughton High School, have been connected to athletics.
Broughton has now reported 8 confirmed COVID-19 cases since Nov. 4. But Luten said the cases do not qualify as a cluster.
A cluster occurs when 5 or more positive COVID-19 cases are reported at a school within a short period of time that can be plausibly linked. No Wake County public schools have showed up yet on the state’s bi-weekly list of school clusters.
Broughton has said that the two cases reported earlier this month are potentially linked.
Of this week’s 6 new cases, Broughton has said two are in the same household. Luten said the other 4 cases are unrelated.
Schools with reported cases
Cases have been reported this week at these Wake schools:
▪ Apex Middle (1 case)
▪ Beaverdam Elementary (1 case)
▪ Brooks Elementary (1 case)
▪ Broughton High (6 cases)
▪ Combs Elementary (1 case)
▪ Connections Academy (1 case)
▪ Davis Drive Elementary (1 case)
▪ Dillard Drive Middle (1 case)
▪ Fox Road Elementary (1 case)
▪ Fuquay-Varina Elementary (2 cases)
▪ Fuquay-Varina High (1 case)
▪ Heritage Elementary (1 case)
▪ Joyner Elementary (1 case)
▪ Knightdale Elementary (2 cases)
▪ Mills Park Elementary (1 case)
▪ Mills Park Middle (1 case)
▪ Poe Elementary (1 case)
▪ Rolesville Elementary (3 cases)
▪ Root Elementary (2 cases)
▪ Salem Elementary (1 case)
▪ Salem Middle (2 cases)
▪ South Garner High (1 case)
▪ Vance Elementary (1 case)
▪ Wakefield Elementary (1 case)
▪ Wakefield High (1 case)
▪ Wake Forest Elementary (1 case)
▪ Wake Forest Middle (1 case)
▪ West Cary Middle (1 case)
▪ West Lake Elementary (1 case)
▪ Yates Mill Elementary (2 cases)
Dr. Danny Benjamin, a Duke University pediatrician and a leader of the ABC Science Collaborative, has said it’s reasonable to expect an average of one new confirmed COVID-19 case per week per school in Wake. The collaborative is helping Wake work through school reopening issues.
Wake brings more students back
This week, Wake’s PreK-3 students and K-12 special education regional students switched from limited in-person instruction to getting it daily. Also this week, some fourth and fifth grade students returned on a rotation of one week of in-person classes and two weeks of online classes.
More than 25,000 elementary students are now on campus every day. Some teachers and parents are concerned because some K-3 classrooms are only able to provide 3 feet of social distancing instead of the 6 feet recommended by the state.
Middle school students have been on that rotation of in-person and online classes since last week.
Only high school students are not receiving any in-person instruction this semester.
COVID cases rising
New coronavirus cases are spiking across the nation. Some school districts, such as New York City, are switching back to remote instruction due to the rise in cases.
But state health officials have said that school reopening isn’t driving the increase because children are less likely to transmit COVID-19 than adults.
Citing data from the ABC Science Collaborative, Wake County Superintendent Cathy Moore said Tuesday that if there are more than 3 COVID-19 clusters per 2-week period per 10,000 students it would trigger a discussion about whether to move the district back to remote instruction.
Moore said that if there are 3 COVID-19 clusters within a school within a 2-week period, it would lead to a discussion whether to switch that school to all remote learning. She said school closures would typically be for 2 weeks.
School board members who backed the spring semester school plan also said they are ready to change the plan if conditions change.
“If health conditions in our community change, if the research comes back and shows there’s secondary transmission, if we see that there’s not compliance with our safety protocols at the elementary school level,” said board member Chris Heagarty. “Any of these possible things that could go wrong. If they go wrong, we will have red flags that will allow us the opportunity to come in and change it.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 5:59 PM.
