A Kentucky school district has canceled in-person classes and moved to remote learning after one in five students were kept home sick with either the flu, strep throat, COVID-19, or other illnesses.
Lee County School District, serving just 900 pupils located in a rural county with a population of just over 7,000, has closed its doors two weeks into the school year following what the school called a ‘tripledemic.”
According to NBC News, within two weeks, classroom attendance dropped to 81%, and 14 staff members called out sick, prompting the school to lockdown to fully sanitize classrooms and facilities.
“We’re sanitizing our buses and our buildings and giving our staff and our students time to heal,” Superintendent Earl Ray said.
The district announced the closure in a Facebook post which has since been made private.
On its website, Lee County School District released updated guidance on COVID-19 protocol just days before the district locked down. The document states that the district “will also follow any required mandates that are in place and realize mandates can be put in place or removed at any time.” The district seemed particularly prepared to reimplement any lockdown order, social distancing, testing, and tracing protocol at a moment’s notice.
In regards to vaccines, the district claims that “there is a lot of science behind the COVID-19 vaccinations,” but laments that “being vaccinated is a personal choice.” The document notes that “COVID-19 vaccinations have been made available at our school to students age 5 and up as well as to staff and community members.”
School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic proved to potentially be the most harmful “public health” decision ever to impact children. Students’ grades suffered considerably, standardized test scores hit record lows, and reading comprehension dropped dramatically. Adolescents also suffered from a severe lack of socialization, leading to record levels of depression, isolation, and high rates of suicide.
Within the past week, several institutions have reimplemented mask mandates, social distancing orders, and routine temperature checks for “14 days to slow the spread” (sound familiar?). Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia will require students and faculty to wear masks for two weeks after isolated positive COVID-19 cases were reported in the area. Rutgers University in New Jersey joined Morris Brown College, making mask-wearing mandatory for students and staff on campus.
Additionally, Lionsgate studio announced that it too would require masks on its premises after the county reported 88 cases of COVID-19. Upstate Community Hospital in Syracuse, New York also reimplemented mask mandates for patients, doctors, and visitors.
Despite the uptick in cases being reported, there has not been an increase in hospitalizations or severe cases that would warrant such actions from several institutions.
