MORGANTOWN — Two positive COVID-19 cases at South Middle School are being classified as an outbreak, the district said Thursday, as the virus was apparently spread from student to student within the building.
The first case from Tuesday put an additional 31 classmates into quarantine, along with three more from Morgantown High who shared a bus ride.
A second student from that quarantine also presented with a positive diagnosis Wednesday, Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr. said.
“Outbreak,” as defined by the West Virginia Department of Education, means at least two cases under the same roof and related.
“That’s how we’re going to have to label this one,” Campbell said. “We’ll have to assume the cases are related, since the second kid was in quarantine.”
That second case put 20 more classmates into isolation as well, making for a quarantine total of 51 at the school.
At Mason Dixon Elementary on the western end of the county, 17 students and two staffers are quarantining today, also, after the positive diagnosis of a student there.
The cases and quarantines are hitting with 80% of all the district’s employees fully vaccinated with the Moderna doses against COVID, Campbell said.
And now the district is readying to inoculate a round of students 16 and older.
That happens April 21 and April 22 in separate clinics at Morgantown High, University and Clay-Battelle.
To date, a total of 523 students from the three schools have registered to roll up their sleeves for their first Pfizer shots, the superintendent said.
“We want our kids to sign up,” he said.
Signing up, he said, means signing on to what will likely be regular pandemic business – at least for now.
“I see us doing this through the summer and probably into fall,” Campbell said.
In the meantime, Morgantown High’s prom – sans dancing – is Saturday at the Morgantown Marriot at Waterfront Place.
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