This story has been updated to correct a statement on how COVID-19 has affected students at the School Corporation of Southern Hancock County.
HANCOCK COUNTY — The return of school has brought a large number of people together again, creating a new, concentrated population in which to keep track of COVID-19.
So far, more than a dozen students are known to have tested positive for the virus since the county’s nearly 14,000 schoolchildren resumed studies starting three weeks ago. As schools monitor cases and contacts, they face challenges like long wait times for test results. Meanwhile, the state is working on a public dashboard for reporting the school-by-school number of students and staff who have tested positive.
Harold Olin, superintendent of Greenfield-Central Schools, said he doesn’t have a problem with the state’s plans and that the school corporation has considered posting its own COVID-19 data on its website.
Olin said that seven G-C students are known to have tested positive for COVID-19 since the beginning of the school year on July 30 — four at the high school, two at the junior high school and one at Eden Elementary School. All but one have returned to school, he said.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]
The students who tested positive, for the most part, had COVID-19 symptoms, Olin said, adding that’s what prompted their tests.
Olin said one G-C teacher tested positive for the novel coronavirus and remains out of school. Another teacher tested positive before the school year started in late July and did not start the year in school, but has returned.
Sometimes it can take more than a week for COVID-19 test results to come back. Students are advised to remain home while they wait, but those who are identified as close contacts in the meantime are staying in school, underscoring a possible vulnerability if the first student’s test comes back positive.
“It has some complications to it,” Olin said. “It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the best system that we have at this point.”
Olin said to his knowledge, no students who were determined to be close contacts have tested positive or developed symptoms. That’s something the school corporation is very interested in, he continued.
“Are masks enough to help kids, even in that 6-foot radius?” he said. “And at this point, that answer is yes, it has been, as a layer of protection that has stopped that spread. I don’t know whether that will be the case long term, but that’s been our early experience with it.”
Wes Anderson, director of school and community relations for Southern Hancock schools, also acknowledged that long wait times for COVID-19 test results can be challenging. That’s where face coverings, social distancing and the long list of other precautions schools are taking come into play, he said.
“We’re actually really pleased with how that’s gone in terms of not having any spread in our schools,” he said. “We’ve been able to contact-trace all those positives in our schools to some other place. None of our close contacts have gotten sick, to our knowledge.”
Since the first day of school on Aug. 3, six Southern Hancock students and no staff members have tested positive for COVID-19, Anderson said. He added he knows that some students who tested positive had symptoms of the virus, but that he doesn’t know the extent or severity of their illnesses.
The school corporation welcomes a statewide COVID-19 dashboard for schools in the interest of transparency, Anderson said.
“Our district has elected to share information about positive cases with all families who have students in the building where the positive (case) occurs,” he said. “Other districts have made different decisions about who to notify about positives. Consistency in the availability of data is important.”
David Pfaff, superintendent of Eastern Hancock Schools, said three students and no staff members are known to have tested positive for COVID-19 since the first day of classes on Aug. 3.
Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation hasn’t had any students or staff test positive for COVID-19 since its year started on Aug. 17, nor does it have anyone out of school in isolation, said Maria Bond, director of community relations for the district.
“MVCSC has been partnering with the Hancock County Health Department and adhering to their guidance and recommendations that stem from the Indiana Department of Health and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention),” Bond said. “We will continue to comply with any requirements as we balance the privacy rights of our students and staff. Student health and safety drives the decisions of our school corporation and remains our highest priority.”
As of Tuesday, school-age children made up Hancock County’s largest age demographic for getting tested for COVID-19. Almost 17% of the county’s tests have been for those age 19 and younger, according to the Indiana State Department of Health’s online COVID-19 dashboard. The second-highest was the 50-59 age bracket, at almost 16%.
Statewide, those 19 and younger made up 13.1% of tests and those in their 20s made up the largest group, at 17.3%
Those 19 and younger made up 10.8% of Hancock County’s COVID-19 cases. Fifty-somethings had the largest portion, at 16.8%. The county hasn’t recorded any COVID-19 deaths among those 19 and younger.
In a media briefing earlier this month, Indiana State Health Commissioner Dr. Kristina Box said her goal is for the state’s schools COVID-19 dashboard to be ready by mid- to late September. Hundreds of thousands of school records are being collected to aid in the effort, she said.
“Having these records will help us quickly match positive cases among students to schools and ensure schools and local health departments are notified properly,” Box said.
The objective of the dashboard, she said, is to identify the number of COVID-19 cases in schools while remaining in compliance with privacy laws.
An online portal is also being built to capture cases among students, teachers and school staff that schools will be asked to update every 24 hours, Box said.
“All of this data is coming together for us to build a public-facing dashboard that truly reflects the prevalence of COVID-19 in our schools,” she said. “…Having this information will help better inform how our schools are being impacted by COVID-19 and may help guide districts to guide their operational plans.”
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”By the numbers” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
COVID-19 cases in Hancock County schools since start of school year
- Greenfield-Central: 7 students, 2 staff members
- Southern Hancock: 6 students, 0 staff members
- Eastern Hancock: 3 students, 0 staff members
- Mt. Vernon: 0 students, 0 staff members
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”By the numbers” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
COVID-19 data
Hancock County
- 74 new individuals tested (no date range provided)
- 9 new cases (no date range provided)
- 3.9% unique individual seven-day positivity rate, 6.1% cumulative rate between Aug. 11 and 18
- 0 new deaths
- 12,884 individuals tested, 16,762 tests administered
- 780 cases
- 2.9% seven-day positivity rate all tests, 5% cumulative rate between Aug. 11 and 18
- 41 deaths
Indiana
- 9,140 new individuals tested, 15,042 new tests administered between March 28 and Aug. 24
- 841 new cases between Aug. 12 and 24
- 6.8% unique individual seven-day positivity rate, 8.7% cumulative rate between Aug. 11 and 18
- 15 new deaths between Aug. 21 and 24
- 1,010,981 individuals tested, 1,325,229 tests administered
- 88,421 cases
- 5.4% seven-day positivity rate all tests, 6.8% cumulative rate between Aug. 11 and 18
- 3,023 deaths
- 46.2% ICU beds in use – non-COVID
- 11.9% ICU beds in use – COVID
- 41.9% ICU beds available
- 13.9% ventilators in use – non-COVID
- 2.7% ventilators in use – COVID
- 83.5% ventilators available
- Hospital census: 987
Source: Indiana State Department of Health as of 11:59 p.m. Aug. 24
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”By the numbers” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
COVID-19 demographic data
Hancock County
Positive cases
Age
- 0-19: 10.8%
- 20-29: 15.3%
- 30-39: 13.2%
- 40-49: 15.5%
- 50-59: 16.8%
- 60-69: 11.2%
- 70-79: 8.5%
- 80+: 8.7%
- Unknown: 0.1%
Gender
- Female: 51.3%
- Male: 47.9%
- Unknown: 0.8%
Race
- White: 66%
- Other: 10.9%
- Black or African American: 3.2%
- Asian: 0.4%
- Unknown: 19.5%
Ethnicity
- Not Hispanic or Latino: 34.5%
- Hispanic or Latino: 1.8%
- Unknown: 63.7%
Deaths
Age
- 0-49: 0%
- 50-59: 4.9%
- 60-69: 9.8%
- 70-79: 22%
- 80+: 63.4%
Gender
- Female: 51.2%
- Male: 48.8%
Race
- White: 90.2%
- Black or African American: 0%
- Other: 4.9%
- Asian: 0%
- Unknown: 4.9%
Ethnicity
- Not Hispanic or Latino: 53.7%
- Hispanic or Latino: 0%
- Unknown: 46.3%
Tests
Age
- 0-19: 16.9%
- 20-29: 13%
- 30-39: 15%
- 40-49: 13.6%
- 50-59: 15.8%
- 60-69: 12.1%
- 70-79: 8.5%
- 80+: 5%
Gender
- Female: 56.4%
- Male: 42.7%
- Unknown: 0.9%
Race
- White: 70.4%
- Other: 10.7%
- Black or African American: 2.2%
- Asian: 0.5%
- Unknown: 16.1%
Ethnicity
- Not Hispanic or Latino: 32.6%
- Hispanic or Latino: 0.6%
- Unknown: 66.8%
Indiana
Positive cases
Age
- 0-19: 11.2%
- 20-29: 19%
- 30-39: 15.4%
- 40-49: 15.5%
- 50-59: 14.6%
- 60-69: 11%
- 70-79: 6.8%
- 80+: 6.4%
Gender
- Female: 52.4%
- Male: 46.2%
- Unknown: 1.4%
Race
- White: 50.3%
- Other: 15%
- Black or African American: 10.8%
- Asian: 1.2%
- Unknown: 22.7%
Ethnicity
- Not Hispanic or Latino: 36.3%
- Hispanic or Latino: 9.6%
- Unknown: 54.1%
Deaths
Age
- 0-19: 0.1%
- 20-29: 0.3%
- 30-39: 0.7%
- 40-49: 1.8%
- 50-59: 5.2%
- 60-69: 15.9%
- 70-79: 25%
- 80+: 51.1%
Gender
- Female: 48.4%
- Male: 49.8%
- Unknown: 1.9%
Race
- White: 64.6%
- Black or African American: 13.9%
- Other: 13.4%
- Asian: 0.6%
- Unknown: 7.4%
Ethnicity
- Not Hispanic or Latino: 51.4%
- Hispanic or Latino: 2.2%
- Unknown: 46.4%
Tests
Age
- 0-19: 13.1%
- 20-29: 17.3%
- 30-39: 15.1%
- 40-49: 14%
- 50-59: 14.6%
- 60-69: 12.7%
- 70-79: 7.9%
- 80+: 4.8%
- Unknown: 0.4%
Gender
- Female: 56.2%
- Male: 42.3%
- Unknown: 1.6%
Race
- White: 60.6%
- 12.2%
- Black or African American: 8.1%
- Asian: 1.1%
- Unknown: 18%
Ethnicity
- Not Hispanic or Latino: 41.5%
- Hispanic or Latino: 3.5%
- Unknown: 54.9%
Source: Indiana State Department of Health as of 11:59 p.m. Aug. 24
[sc:pullout-text-end]
