68 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the past week at these 49 Wake County schools
The Wake County school system reported 68 new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the past week as students and staff returned from Thanksgiving break.
The latest update Thursday night to the school district’s COVID-19 metrics page shows that 49 schools reported new cases since last week, with several reporting multiple cases. School staff accounted for 37 of the new cases, with 31 cases among students.
The district has reported 219 cases since Oct. 26, when the first students began returning for in-person instruction. This week’s total is up from last week’s total of 55 cases. The total has risen each week.
The new Wake totals come as North Carolina reported Thursday a record 5,637 new confirmed COVID-19 cases statewide. The number of new cases, hospitalizations and percentage of positive test results has been rising.
“We’ve had an increasing number of students coming in each week as well as just an increasing number of contacts between people,” Tim Simmons, Wake’s chief communications officer, said at Tuesday’s school board meeting. “You don’t want to see increasing cases, but it’s to be expected.”
But Simmons added that, at least as of Tuesday, there had been no confirmed cases of secondary transmission of COVID-19 within any of the district’s schools.
This week, Wake began saying whether individual cases involved students or staff. Since Oct. 29, Wake has reported 137 cases among staff and 77 among students.
Wake has 157,000 students in more than 190 schools. Health experts have advised Wake that it’s reasonable to expect one new case per school each week.
Currently, all PreK-3 students and K-12 special education regional students not in the Virtual Academy are getting daily in-person instruction. Students in fourth through eighth grades are attending on a rotation of one week of in-person classes and two weeks of online classes.
Most high school students are only getting virtual classes. High schools have reported COVID-19 cases because staff, athletes and some special-education students are on campus.
Wake updates its COVID-19 dashboard (www.wcpss.net/Page/46136) every Thursday.
Schools with reported cases
Cases have been reported this past week at these Wake schools:
▪ Abbotts Creek Elementary (3 students)
▪ Athens Drive High (1 staff)
▪ Aversboro Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Banks Road Elementary (1 student)
▪ Brooks Elementary (1 student)
▪ Broughton High (2 students)
▪ Buckhorn Creek Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Bugg Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Carver Elementary (1 student)
▪ Creech Road Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Dillard Drive Elementary (1 staff)
▪ East Wake High (1 staff)
▪ Enloe High (1 staff, 2 students)
▪ Farmington Woods Elementary (1 student)
▪ Fox Road Elementary (1 student)
▪ Fuquay-Varina Elementary (1 student)
▪ Garner High (2 staff)
▪ Herbert Akins Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Heritage Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Heritage High (1 staff)
▪ Holly Ridge Middle (1 student)
▪ Holly Springs Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Holly Springs High (1 staff, 1 student)
▪ Jeffreys Grove Elementary (1 student)
▪ Knightdale High (1 staff)
▪ Lacy Elementary (3 staff, 1 student)
▪ Lead Mine Elementary (1 student)
▪ Lockhart Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Lufkin Road Middle (1 staff)
▪ Lynn Road Elementary (1 staff, 1 student)
▪ Neuse River Middle (1 staff)
▪ North Ridge Elementary (2 staff)
▪ Rand Road Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Reedy Creek Middle (1 staff)
▪ Richland Creek Elementary (1 staff)
▪ River Bend Elementary (1 student)
▪ River Oaks Middle (1 staff)
▪ Rogers Lane Elementary (1 student)
▪ Rolesville High (1 staff, 1 student)
▪ Southeast Raleigh Elementary (1 student)
▪ Stough Elementary (1 staff, 1 student)
▪ Swift Creek Elementary (1 student)
▪ Vandora Springs Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Wakefield Elementary (1 staff, 1 student)
▪ Wakefield High (1 staff, 2 students)
▪ Walnut Creek Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Wendell Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Wildwood Forest Elementary (1 staff)
▪ Willow Springs Elementary (3 students)
Some cases not being reported
Individual Wake schools have contacted families when they’ve been told that a student or employee tested positive for COVID-19. School board members Jim Martin and Heather Scott questioned Tuesday why some cases reported to families were not showing up on the district’s dashboard.
Martin estimated that as many as 10% of the cases reported to families weren’t showing up on the website.
“At a minimum, I think we should have it on our website and even with an asterisk that says this was reported but not verified by the Health Department,” Martin said. “I would feel better about that then not having it appear at at all.”
Simmons said that when a person tells a school they’ve tested positive or think they’ve contracted COVID-19, it’s forwarded to the district’s Health Services department. He said Health Services investigates but, in the interests of transparency, there’s a “low bar” for sending out a notice to families.
But Simmons said the cases aren’t officially added to the district’s website until they get confirmation from county health officials of a positive COVID-19 test result. In a few cases, he said health officials are unable to find a positive test result.
But, more often, Simmons said there’s a time lag between when they contact health officials and they get confirmation of the positive test result. Simmons said that certain kinds of COVID-19 tests take longer than others to get results.
Wake has retroactively added new cases to past weeks.
“It’s important to understand that these numbers are not going to be perfect,” Simmons told the board. “Cases at every level, meaning school districts, counties, they’re going to be missed. But we’re doing our best to collect the information.”
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 9:09 PM.
