School COVID-19 cases drop by almost 39%

Carolyn King, a teacher, works with fourth and fifth grade students in her classroom where social distancing was being observed during the last week of a three-week summer enrichment program for students at South Ocala Elementary School in Ocala, Fla. on Wednesday, July 29, 2020. Classes are scheduled to begin on August 24 for students in the Marion County Public School System amid the COVID-19 pandemic. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 2020.

Carolyn King, a teacher, works with fourth and fifth-grade students in her classroom at South Ocala Elementary School in Ocala in this July 2020 file photo. [Bruce Ackerman/Ocala Gazette] 

Marion County Public Schools COVID-19 numbers continue to drop.

MCPS recorded 157 total new cases for the week of Sept. 18 – Sept. 24, as 143 students and 14 employees were confirmed COVID-19 positive by the Florida Department of Health in Marion County. The figures, released Monday afternoon, are down from the 256 cases reported on Sept. 20 and 367 cases reported on Sep. 13.

The 157 cases are the lowest on record since the district reported 139 cases during Aug 10-13, which was the opening week of school.

Quarantine numbers were also down, with MCPS reporting 582 students and employees quarantined due to direct contact with someone testing positive for COVID-19. The quarantines included 573 students and only nine district employees.

Additionally, the 582 quarantines are also the lowest since the first week of school and the second consecutive week where there were less than 1,000 in quarantine.

The dropping school district numbers follow the downward trends of the county and state as a whole.

Parents continue to opt their children out of facial coverings, however.  MCPS reported 9,424 students, or 22%, have an opt-out form on file, which allows them to forego face coverings.

Governor Ron DeSantis revised a rule last week on when children exposed to COVID-19 can return to school. The revision gives sole authority to parents to determine when their children return.

Previously, the child must be five days post-exposure and have a negative PCR test.  Or they could return eight days after exposure, as long as they are asymptomatic.

The timeline for children returning to class after testing positive for the virus also changed. They may return once asymptomatic with a negative test, with written permission from a physician or advanced registered nurse practitioner, or ten days after the onset of symptoms or a positive test and no fever for 24 hours before returning.

The drop in school cases mirrors the overall drop in the country.

COVID-19 numbers in Marion County dropped to 1,038 new cases for the week ending Sept. 24, down from 1,543 cases the previous week.

The county positivity rate and cases per 100,000 dropped as well. The positivity rate fell from 17.9% to 13.3% and the cases per 100,000 went from 414.3 to 278.7, according to figures released by the Florida Department of Health Friday evening.

The state recorded 56,325 new cases of COVID-19 during the week of Sept. 17 to Sept. 23, its lowest number of new weekly cases in more than two and a half months. Vaccination rates dropped to their lowest levels in two and a half months as well, however, as the state recorded administering 273,756 doses.