How it All Turned Out

It is my sincere hope and desire this will be my last blog post talking about COVID. Today, I want to just take a few minutes to provide some final data points about the number of cases, quarantines, and other observations about our health and safety protocols that were in place this year. While our Return to Learn page will remain active on our website for the time being, you may have noticed the matrix has been removed. However, if you are interested the complete data set with all data points visible, it can be viewed right here. 

The fact that we have largely moved on as a society, and in large degree as a school district isn't lost on anyone. Whenever I open the drive on my computer, the files that have been most consistently used are among the top of the list. Unsurprisingly, the data matrix that I so meticulously cultivated over the last year is beginning to gather dust. The last time it was open prior to opening it today for a point of reference was May 27th, almost a full month ago!

Final COVID data chart

The very first data point was entered on July 30, 2020 when we finalized our matrix after receiving guidelines from the Iowa Department of Education and in collaboration with the Iowa Department of Public Health and the Black Hawk County Health Department. For the next 300 consecutive days, we would track 11 data points, rain or shine. While the matrix would evolve over the course of the school year, we would remain committed to providing our community with valid, reliable, and hopefully consistent information. The most significant evolution would come on October 30th when we started tracking the percentage of students absent for any COVID related reason. This would include those who were COVID positive, in quarantine, or in isolation while awaiting the results of a test. 

As you can see from the chart above, our high watermark occurred on November 11th when we had an absentee rate of 11.09%. This tracked pretty closely to the county positivity rate, which reached its high on November 14th with a 26.4% positivity rate. This was the closest we could come during the school year to changing our learning model. You can read more about the decision making that went on during this interlude right here. 

That's not to say we didn't have interruptions! You may recall our cross country season was briefly suspended due to a minor outbreak on that team. Interestingly enough, that team came back and captured the state title!  A positive case with exposure during an open gym caused a disruption of the boys basketball season right as they were getting ready to begin conditioning for the season (this probably explains to everyone why those teams all elected to wear face coverings for the first half of the season, both in practice and competition). Our wrestling season was also briefly interrupted right before the holidays. As you can see from the illustration above, we really began to improve after the holidays. 

In the final analysis, we had a total of 44 student cases of COVID. While it would be difficult to determine with certainty where the transmission of these cases occurred, based on our analysis of the data and investigation of those cases, it appears that only 6 of them may have happened while at school. Additionally, more than 95% of our cases were experienced in grades 7-12. 

There were 240 instances of a student being placed in quarantine. Unfortunately there were some students who had to be placed in quarantine more than once, so it is difficult to conclude without deeper analysis how many students were truly impacted. Of those placed in quarantine, 13.75% were exposed at school. The weak spots in our mitigation and safety plan were the lunch period and during our activity program, which was where those exposures occurred. When cross referencing those exposed at school to COVID positive cases, my analysis reveals only 5 cases that may have occurred as a direct result of exposure at school. 

An interesting observation that came about as a result of this analysis was a decrease in other seasonal illnesses, which we can likely attribute to our health and safety plan. in 2020-2021, we had 0 reported cases of influenza, compared with 30 in the 2019-2020 school year. While we had 37 cases of strep reported during the 2020-2021 school year, that compares to 74 in the 2019-2020 school year. 

So, is is over? Well as a reminder, I'm not that kind of doctor so not equipped to make that determination. However, I am equipped to recommend you get vaccinated if you haven't done so already!