MONROE — After being hammered by COVID-19 cases in January, resulting in a mask-mandate for schools, Monroe school officials are seeing a rapid improvement in the situation and if that continues the mask mandate could be eliminated as early as next week.
“The number of COVID-positive student cases has dropped dramatically over the last ten days,” said Joe Monroe, director of pupil services. “We believe this is a combination of a couple of factors.”
Among those factors, he said, was a plan approved by the school board that called for masking — once levels were elevated in schools. At one point, the number of faculty and students either under quarantine or who tested positive for the virus was over 200 per day.
Now though the most recent numbers show that falling to around 44 cases daily, according to the most recent data available at press time. Monroe is hoping that trend extends into next week, resulting in a roll back of masking and other measures.
“This plan worked exactly as it was intended as it provided a mitigation strategy that effectively limited transmission within the schools,” Monroe said. “In addition, the Omicron variant is known to cause fast-rising spikes in communities but then decline almost as quickly it rose. In combination, these two factors have allowed us to work through the most significant COVID surge our community has experienced to date. “
Thus, he said, the district could revert back to a mask-optional strategy “as early as Monday of next week, but the official decision will be announced once the data is finalized.” That will come as welcome relief to students, faculty and parents who endured daily disruptions in schools due to COVID-19 and efforts to mitigate it.
Masks were required in all School District of Monroe facilities starting Thursday, Jan. 13 after positive student cases exploded by more than 438% in the nine days after the return from the holiday break, according to district officials.
The rapid improvement in COVID-19 cases among faculty, students and staff was not easy, Monroe added, saying the district realized “significant staffing shortages” during the last month.
“We were faced with tough decisions about our ability to keep our schools open,” he said. “Ultimately, our staff stepped up and took on extra responsibilities to allow us to keep our kids in school. I couldn’t be more proud of the hard work and commitment demonstrated by our team.”
Last week, after nearly two years responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Green County Public Health officials announced they were “transitioning away from universal disease investigation and contact tracing for individual cases of COVID-19.”
Their time and resources, officials said, would instead go to increased vaccination, increased testing, additional education and outbreak prevention efforts. The change, they added, “comes after messaging from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services and joint statement from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, encouraging local health departments to focus on activities that are expected to yield the greatest benefit in terms of preventing severe COVID-19 disease.”
