Mississippi has 82 counties. Since the state’s schools started reopening, schools in 71 of those counties have reported cases of the coronavirus even as Gov. Tate Reeves brags about the state’s overall new case count dropping.
In those 71 counties, 245 teachers and 199 students have tested positive, with an additional 589 teachers and 2,035 students being quarantined as a result. As of Aug. 14, just 39 counties had reported school-related COVID-19 cases. Can we pause for a moment to think about the kind of spread of a lethal disease we’re talking about here?
Reeves is announcing two measures to try to control the spread of the virus in schools. First, he’s expanding coronavirus testing for teachers. They won’t have to be symptomatic or to have had a known contact with someone who had the virus to be tested. That’s a step that maybe should have been taken before Mississippi schools reopened—and should be extended to students as well. In other words, it’s too little, too late in a state with seriously inadequate testing capacity and intensive care units at risk of being overwhelmed if there’s a new wave of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Reeves is also allowing school-based emergency telehealth, which will benefit schools without school nurses. Again … that’s fine, but this is the answer to schools in 71 counties with nearly 450 positive cases—that we know of, because asymptomatic cases could be going undetected—and more than 2,500 people in quarantine, just a few weeks into the school year?
Following news that 97,000 children tested positive in the last two weeks of July and a warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that cases among children have been “steadily increasing,” Mississippi looks like a gross experiment with people’s lives.
