The news is full of reports of schools changing their COVID policies and procedures. St. Mary’s continues to follow the incidence and hospitalizations in El Paso County and our COVID response remains fluid based on that data. Our No. 1 goal is to keep students in school! Masks are encouraged for those not vaccinated, but the decision is ultimately up to the parents.
What we know: El Paso Co vaccination rate is 64 percent
- In the 10-19 age group, there were zero hospitalization in the last week (Aug. 11-Aug. 18). The week prior, there were two hospitalizations in that age group.
- From Aug. 1-Aug. 18, there have been 360 positive cases in the 10-19 age group of 2,867 total cases making up 12.5 percent of all cases. Comparatively, last August there were 171 positive cases making up 11 .7 percent of cases. In March 2020, there were 735 cases in the 10-19 group of the 4,658 cases, accounting for 15.7 percent.
- The vaccine is the best weapon we have against COVID. Between the three different vaccines they are about 93 percent effective against COVID-19 and about 88 percent effective against the Delta variant.
If your student is sick, please keep them at home. Mask are encouraged for those not vaccinated but decision is your's and you students.
Those who are exposed at school and not vaccinated will have to quarantine. Those exposed at school and vaccinated will not have to quarantine unless they become symptomatic.
We will continue to employ other strategies including proper hand hygiene, good ventilation and cleaning.
You may have heard District 20 is now requiring masks for K-12students, teachers and anyone in the building regardless of vaccination status. We are hoping these decisions stay local and are not mandated by the health department.
We will continue to monitor the data and adjust as needed