The Champaign-Urbana Public Health Department is recommending that schools within Champaign County return to remote learning as soon as possible and remain in that model until Jan. 5.
Pryde said that CUPHD understands that schools have processes and procedures to put into place prior to taking these steps, should they choose.
The Public Health Department hopes that by going remote, COVID-19 clusters, which have been found in some schools and daycares locally, will help limit the spread of infection and assist in reducing the positivity rate in Champaign County.
Currently, Region 6 is a 12.7-percent positivity while Champaign County is a 8.4-percent.
Weekly cases among youth in Champaign County are increasing, currently sitting at 137+ per week. Weekly cases per 100,000 residents of Champaign County are at 350+.
Positive COVID-19 cases have spiked at 100-150 new cases per day in Champaign County, helping to add to the Region 6 seven-day rolling average of 12.2-percent. Pryde said in the last week, Champaign County has had over 700 new cases.
Hospitalizations are also increasing, currently at 75, the most Champaign County has seen since March. In the past week, eight people have died from COVID-19 in Champaign County.
“There’s no sign right now of this slowing down,” Pryde said. “In addition to this, we’re starting to see flu and our ERs and at our Convenient Cares.
These metrics put Champaign County into Substantial Community Transmission, which according to the CDC, calls for additional mitigations.
Mahomet-Seymour School District has placed 14 new COVID-19 cases among in-person students on their dashboard since Nov. 10. Heritage has recorded three positive student cases and one staff case in the second quarter after going first quarter without a case. St. Joseph-Ogden High School has had nine students and five staff test positive; that number has been spread out over the three months of school.
“We have not seen an increase in cases, but definitely some staff and more students having to go to a remote learning quarantine period of two weeks due to outside of school exposure,” Heritage Superintendent Tom Davis said. “We are doing synchronous learning for those students, meaning the students can join live instruction during the school day time for their classes.
CUPHD Director Julie Pryde said that the virus is spreading within people’s homes as people gather for birthdays, weddings or dinner parties, get togethers and also in spaces such as restaurants and bars that are not following current mitigations by allowing dining indoors.
Davis said that in Heritage’s 60th day of in-person instruction, they do not know of a case that has been traced back to school exposure, whether during school hours or during extracurriculars.
The Heritage board, administrators, and staff will meet tomorrow to discuss information provided by CUPHD, and the board will meet on Monday night.
Mahomet-Seymour has a board meetings Monday night. At this time, COVID-19 is not on the agenda as an action item, rather, a discussion item.
St. Joseph CCSD #169 and St. Joseph-Ogden High School have said beginning Nov. 20, they would move to remote learning per CUPHD guidance until Jan. 5.
Prairieview-Ogden has not made any decisions yet, but Superintendent Jeff Isenhower said more information might be available tomorrow.
Pryde said that Champaign County schools have done an “amazing job.”
But the guidance from the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Illinois State Board of Education states that when community transmission is at the rate it is in Champaign County, the recommended steps are for schools to choose remote learning.
“If people are going to continue to gather and have weddings and have receptions and act like we’re not in a pandemic, then schools are going to suffer and other places are going to suffer,” Pryde said. “We have got to get this level of transmission down and get it down soon because we do not want to see what’s happening in other places in our state and other places in the country.”
Mahomet-Seymour Board member Max McComb asked, “Transmission in schools has been minimal. Is it not safer for children to be in schools considering for many parents other forms of daycare will be their only viable option?” during the press conference Thursday.
Pryde said that the K-12 guidance for community transmission, when it gets to a certain point, is to go to remote learning.
“Even though our schools are doing a good job, once you get this much community transmission, you are going to see a lot of faculty, staff and kids with it, as well,” Pryde said.
She added that several daycares in Champaign County have had to close down because of several positive cases at one time.
CUPHD will meet with school districts with updated guidance, and information after school care moving forward.
The public health district also wants to encourage faith-based organizations to move to remote service, asks that bars and restaurants follow IDPH mitigations and that people reconsider Thanksgiving plans to only include members of their household.
