East Chicago Public School Corporation shows COVID data on its website
Lake County school districts are now showing COVID data on their websites
Contributed By:The 411 News
In schools the COVID-19 story is the unvaccinated
Before the start of school in August, Indiana averaged less than 10 daily cases of COVID-19 in school children between the ages of 5 and 18.
Numbers from the first week of September show the daily COVID-19 infections in schools have increased nearly 100-fold. For the week of August 30 through September 3, according to the dashboard at www.in.gov/coronavirus, Indiana schools reported 4,252 positive cases.
Indiana requires all schools to report COVID data to the Indiana Department of Health. Schools must report the number of persons, student and staff, who have tested positive for the virus.
Only recently, many school districts in Lake County have begun publishing COVID-19 positive numbers for students and staff on their websites. Some schools also report the number of students and staff being quarantined -- required to stay out of the school buildings for a specific number of days because of their close contact with a person in their school who tested positive for the virus.
As of September 10, the School City of Hammond, the largest school district in Lake County, reported 113 positive student cases for the school year; 19 for staff.
East Chicago Public Schools corporation shows a total of 39 positive student cases and 8 positive cases among its staff have been recorded as of September 6. A total of 94 students and 5 staff have been quarantined.
The School Town of Highland reported, since August 11, the district recorded 20 positive cases for students and 0 positive cases for staff; 80 students have been quarantined.
The Lake Central School Corporation covers the towns of Dyer, Schererville, and St. John. The district reported, since August 11, 123 positive cases for students and 17 positive cases for staff. Number of students quarantined since August 11 is 458; 9 staff have been quarantined.
The Crown Point Community School Corporation has recorded 128 positive student COVID cases and 17 positive staff cases for the school year. Instead of quarantine numbers, the district reports numbers of close contacts. Crown Point reported 1,531 close contacts.
Three Lake County school districts -- Hammond, East Chicago and Gary -- started their school year with a mask requirement for all students and staff in school buildings and on student bus transportation. Now, nearly all school districts in the county are requiring masks to decrease the spread of the virus.
The Gary Community School Corporation has not yet published COVID data on its website.
The low numbers of staff positive cases in school districts attest to the vaccines given to adults.
A vaccine for children under 12 is not yet available and Indiana’s vaccination numbers for the 12-18 school age population are very low. According to the Indiana Dept. of Health, as of September 1, only 28% of children ages 12-15 have been fully vaccinated.
In the 16-19 age group, 38 percent are fully vaccinated.
Snapshot of East Chicago Public Schools COVID dashboard
Snapshot of School Town of Highland COVID dashboard
Snapshot of Lake Central School Corporation COVID dashboard
Story Posted:09/12/2021
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