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Ariel Gilreath
| Greenville News
Governor Henry McMaster wants South Carolina public health officials to disclose details of the COVID-19 cases involving students and staff from state public schools.
In a letter on Monday to the chairman of the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, McMaster urged the agency to “start developing a process to collect, compile and disseminate information on confirmed cases of COVID-19 among students and staff. in each school district in the state, “weeks before schools reopened.
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“I ask DHEC to make these numbers available to the public on a daily basis,” McMaster wrote in his letter.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday afternoon at Bob Jones University in Greenville, McMaster said that testing procedures for COVID-19 may vary between school districts in South Carolina. be disclosed.
“We can eliminate panic, we can eliminate many consequences that result from a lack of information,” said McMaster, who attended the inauguration of the university’s School of Health Professions. “We want to be an open book. The more information we can give people, the better it will be for us.”
Ryan Brown, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, said that schools today only need to notify students and families who have been in close contact with a positive case. Close contact, according to DHEC, is when someone is less than two meters from a positive case for about 15 minutes.
Brown said that this means that a student in a classroom can have a positive test, and schools would not necessarily have to inform other students in the classroom if they were not in close contact with the student.
But Brown acknowledged that it can be difficult for schools to control which students and staff have close contact with each other throughout the day.
“It will definitely be easier to track the smaller the setting,” said Brown.
Schools across the state are expected to reopen in a few weeks. The state department approved plans to reopen most districts, but the agency initially required schools to include a face-to-face option for students by September 14. Now, schools without specific face-to-face dates must have their plans approved by the state every two weeks.
At Greenville County Schools, the first day of school for students from kindergarten through eighth grade is August 17th, while the first day for all students is August 24th. The district is expected to announce its schedule for the first week of school today.
Each of Spartanburg’s seven school districts will return to schools on 17 August. State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman announced in July that plans to reopen Spartanburg’s school districts have been approved. Each district is offering virtual learning options.
McMaster’s letter came after a recent protest in Tennessee over the comments of a leading public health official who indicated that the state would not solicit or collect data on the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths at each school.
Days later, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said on Tuesday that his administration is in the process of creating a plan that would allow schools to share information about the number of COVID-19 cases on their premises.
Data disputes Trump’s claim that children are “virtually immune” to COVID-19
President Donald Trump last week defended his call to reopen schools this fall, claiming that children are “virtually immune” to COVID-19.
Recent reports have raised questions about the validity of his claim.
At least 97,000 children in the United States tested positive for coronavirus in the last two weeks of July, according to a new report by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. In all, more than 338,000 children have been infected since the start of the pandemic, according to data from the report, which was based on data from 49 states, along with Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and Guam.
Two children under the age of 5 died of COVID-19 in South Carolina, including one in Greenville County, according to DHEC.
In Georgia, a high school captured on viral images last week plans to temporarily shut down all face-to-face classes – after nine students and staff tested positive for the coronavirus.
North Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia, gained national attention shortly after students returned to classes on August 3, when photos posted on social media showed crowded hallways, with many students without masks.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.