Nearly one out of five students in the Carroll County School District was in quarantine last week due to exposure to the coronavirus.
The numbers, released Wednesday by the Mississippi Department of Health, affirm the Carroll County district’s decision to finish the last two weeks of the fall semester with all classes being conducted virtually. Since Monday, the district’s 835 students have been receiving their instruction at home.
The district reported that for the week ending Dec. 4, an additional eight students and one staff member at J.Z. George High School had tested positive for COVID-19. Also, 107 students from the high school were in quarantine because they had had close contact with someone infected with the virus.
The virus has also spread significantly into the district’s only other school, Marshall Elementary. Forty-two of its students were in quarantine last week, and two more employees and at least three more students tested positive for COVID-19.
Carroll County has become one of the hot spots for transmission in Mississippi. For most of November, it was at or near the top in the state’s ranking of infection rates. As of Monday, it was ranked No. 11 with an average of 9.48 new cases of COVID-19 daily per 10,000 residents over the past seven days, according to data tracked by the Harvard Global Health Institute and the Brown School of Public Health. By comparison, the average was 6.94 in Leflore County and 6.20 in the entire state.
In Leflore County, Amanda Elzy High School reported that 22 students and six employees were in quarantine last week, and that between one and five students tested positive for COVID-19. The numbers are believed to largely reflect exposure to the virus within the basketball program. Players from both the girls and boys teams are scheduled to remain in quarantine through Sunday.
Among private schools, Pillow Academy continues to deal with a lingering outbreak. It reported that seven more students tested positive for the virus last week, bringing the total to 38 since school began with largely in-person instruction in August. Eight other students and one staff member were quarantining due to exposure to COVID-19.
So far this year, 11 teachers or other staff members have contracted the virus, but there were no additional cases last week.
Two of the area’s other private schools — Delta Streets Academy and Carroll Academy — continue to not report their numbers to the Department of Health, despite a longstanding order from state health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs that all Mississippi schools do so weekly.
According to Health Department officials, failure to comply is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500 and up to six months in jail.
Delta Streets returned to in-person classes this week after going all-virtual last week because of an outbreak among staff at the school.
•Contact Tim Kalich at 581-7243 or tkalich@gwcommonwealth.com.
