Dr. Fermin Leguen, acting chief health officer of the Southern Nevada Health District, responds to a question on three new presumptive positive cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) during a news conference at the Southern Nevada Health District offices Wednesday, March 11, 2020.
Friday, Oct. 23, 2020 | 12:35 a.m.
Even though the coronavirus positivity rate isn’t expected to drop in the Las Vegas area in the coming months, the Southern Nevada Health District on Thursday said it wouldn’t stop the Clark County School District from exploring how to bring back in-person instruction.
Learning has been conducted remotely since the outset of the pandemic in mid-March.
Dr. Fermin Leguen, acting chief health officer of the health district, said if CCSD stuck to the 5% positivity rate he originally laid out in September as the benchmark to return that students would not be able to get back to the classroom in any reasonable time.
“My recommendation is for the schools to reopen and the reason for that is because back in September our rates were going down and I was perhaps very optimistic that was the way to go with the trend. That changed. What we are seeing now is the rates going up,” Leguen said Thursday in addressing the School Board.
School Board members will vote Nov. 12 on a plan for reopening schools. No target date for returning was announced.
The coronavirus positivity rate in Clark County is around 9.2%, and six Clark County children tested positive for coronavirus in the past two weeks, officials said.
Leguen’s logic didn’t sit well with the board, including vice president Linda Cavazos, who said in disbelief, “We are going to go forward with risking the illness, the lives of our students, because we can’t get down to that number?”
Leguen said there were additional factors to consider besides the positivity rate, including mental health issues for students due to isolation and single parents who can’t afford to take time off work to help their children learn online.
He reiterated that the school district would not be able to open schools if they based the decision solely on the positivity rate.
“Clark County won’t be able to get close to those numbers in a time that would allow you to bring back students,” Leguen said.
Leguen said there is no scientific consensus about whether coronavirus transmission is conclusively linked to school systems. He said a large proportion of the young children who are infected are asymptomatic.
But “while the numbers for kids aren’t necessarily that daunting, the reality is those kids carry the virus,” School Board member Deanna Wright warned.
Board member Linda Young said she was worried about opening schools because of vulnerable staff who could experience long-lasting health issues or, even worse, die. She said the school district and the School Board would be responsible.
“If we use these numbers and say they aren’t any good because we can’t meet the number, that will fall back on the district and the trustees,” she said.
Leguen said if CCSD decides to open schools for in-person learning, there needs to be heavy mitigation strategies in place to prevent the spread of the virus, like updates to ventilation systems and contact tracing. Students and staff would wear masks, classrooms wouldn’t be at full capacity, and deep cleaning would be regularly required. A similar hybrid learning model was proposed over the summer, but officials opted for exclusive remote learning.
Leguen also said Clark County will receive 100,000 rapid coronavirus tests, which could help quickly identify students and staff who may be infected.
He also said labs have the capacity to test thousands of CCSD teachers and staff on a daily basis. He would recommend tests every two weeks as part of a reopening plan.
