Mt. Pleasant moving to daily updates on school virus cases

MT. PLEASANT - The Mt. Pleasant Community School District will begin to provide daily updates on staff and students who test positive for COVID-19 as well as the number of staff and students quarantined in response to positive cases. The information will be available on the district website.

The decision to provide daily updates came after the district canceled a scheduled football game on Friday afternoon 'out of an abundance of caution.”

In the cancellation notice, the district said it was 'working through the details of some positive cases” at the district high school.

A follow-up letter from Superintendent John Henriksen stated the district was re-evaluating its learning model in response to the rising positivity rate in Henry County as well as 'a number of positive cases” at the high school. Henriksen noted he had suggested going to a hybrid model for the high school, but school board members ultimately decided to stay face-to-face for the time being while working 'to improve our physical distancing practices in the classrooms, minimizing close contacts and potential transmission.”

In the letter, Henriksen notes the district continues to work closely with local public health, which has informed the district that cases in the county remain localized and confined and are 'not representative of broad virus spread across [the] school district.”

The letter notes the district sees more than 96 percent daily average attendance, and students do not seem to be transmitting the virus to each other at school.

'We believe data shows that our mitigation strategies at school are working. When we review the health of our close contact students over the length of their quarantines, we find that they are not exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms,” Henriksen notes in the letter.

The superintendent reminded families of their 'role to play in limiting the spread” of the virus and encouraged students and parents to continue to practice good mitigation strategies both in and out of school.

Public Health Director Shelley Van Dorin echoed that the school is 'doing an excellent job at mitigation,” and noted the county's high positivity rate can be attributed to an outbreak at the Mt. Pleasant Correctional Facility. As of Sunday afternoon, Henry County has 743 cases and a 25.2 percent positivity rate.

Van Dorin noted the facility did another round of testing the week of Sept. 21, which may contribute to another wave of positive cases but warns there is also community spread within the county and encourages residents to practice good mitigation strategies. According to Iowa Correction's COVID-19 tracker, 2,356 inmates at the Mt. Pleasant Correctional Facility have been tested as of Sunday. There are currently 66 positive inmate cases and four staff cases. The facility also reports 341 inmates have recovered from the virus alongside six staff members. There have been no COVID-19 related deaths at the facility to date.

The public health director reminded parents to keep children at home if they are experiencing symptoms, wear face coverings and avoid large gatherings if social distancing is not possible.