Unpopular opinion: West Virginia K-12 schools should go online-only until Jan. 11.
Right now, Gov. Jim Justice’s declaration has all public schools doing remote classes until Dec. 2, and it sounds like most schools plan to return to the classroom after the governor’s mandate has expired. But, there have been multiple outbreaks at schools around the state, including four COVID-19 positives just this week in Monongalia County that made 91 other people quarantine because of possible exposure. And this is before people gather for the holidays.
Here in the Mountain State, new positive cases are consistently in the triple digits and the daily death toll in double digits every day. Nationally, we’ve surpassed 250,000 COVID deaths. And, again, this is before the holidays. Which means we shouldn’t have in-person learning until after the holidays are well over.
We know not everyone will stay home and only celebrate with their households as, first, Thanksgiving comes, then Christmas and Hanukah and then New Year’s. We fervently hope people make good choices about travel and safety precautions, but there are some who won’t. So let’s just nix in-person classes until the whole holiday season is over. This way, we won’t see school-related transmission surge between the major holidays. Also, there will be ample time to give every school a thorough deep-clean and disinfection before classes resume.
Why Jan. 11? Well, we also think all students and staff who plan to be in the building need to get a COVID test before they can return. We’re accounting for any get-togethers on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day that could become transmission events. It takes roughly five days after exposure for enough coronavirus to accumulate in the nasal passages to be detected by a test. The health departments should set up drive-through testing at one school in every district on or around Jan. 6, where students and staff can be swabbed. It takes three to five days for results to become available, so everyone should know their status by the following Monday, Jan. 11, when in-person classes begin again.
Everything above is said with the acknowledgement that reliable internet access and child care are not available to everyone. And that exposure to COVID-19 can happen after a person gets tested, making those results null. What we’ve proposed is not a fool-proof plan. But already we are experiencing massive community spread and terrifying coronavirus surges. Right now, one COVID-positive person can cause an entire grade level to quarantine. And this is likely to get worse after Thanksgiving. We’re scared to think what our coronavirus numbers might look like after Christmas, Hanukah and New Year’s.
For as much as it is feasible to do so, we strongly believe West Virginia schools need to shift to online-only learning until early-to-mid January and that everyone who plans to enter a school building should have to provide negative COVID test results. Living with the coronavirus and all its complications isn’t easy — but it’s still better than dying of COVID.
