COLUMBUS, Ind. — Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. released information about COVID-19 positive cases and contact tracing Thursday, revealing a very small number since school opened on Aug. 10.
Superintendent Jim Roberts said from Aug. 10 until Thursday, there have been eight positive COVID-19 tests of students and staff members within the BCSC community, but of those eight, only two were actually in school around other individuals, causing the need for BCSC contact tracing.
Nine individuals were identified as “close contacts” of those two individuals based on seating charts, bus charts or other information about extended periods of time the individuals may have been near them, Roberts said. Close contacts may also refer to the individuals’ family members, including siblings.
BCSC has 13,000 people within its community, made up of 11,000 students and an estimated 2,000 employees, which would make the per capita COVID-19 infection rate at 4.4%, a number that is within the green metric for low spread, according to Roberts.
The school corporation believes this reflects “a pretty good mitigation number” at this point, he said.
Flat Rock-Hawcreek is providing its COVID-19 metric numbers each Friday on its website.
In Flat Rock-Hawcreek’s first report, posted this week, the school corporation is reporting no confirmed positive COVID-19 cases. Every Friday, Flat Rock-Hawcreek will update its website with the number of COVID-19 cases at Hauser Jr./Sr. High School and Hope Elementary, as well as the number of student referrals for “failure to properly wear mask” and “failure to social distance” at both schools.
In its most recent update, Flat Rock-Hawcreek reported no positive cases of COVID-19 in its schools. There was one mask-related referral at Hauser Jr.-Sr. High School. So far, there have been no reported referrals for failing to social distance. The next update is expected to be posted Friday at flatrock.k12.in.us/.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
