South Carolina ‘symptomatic’ elementary student who visited the school nurse was kept in a storage locker

MYRTLE BEACH, SC – An elementary school student attending Myrtle Beach Elementary School in South Carolina visited the school’s nurse because of symptoms similar to COVID-19 and was put in a locker to isolate himself from other students, district officials say .

District officials say the storage cabinet was used due to a lack of space.

In a statement to FOX TV stations, the authorities said that some areas within school health rooms were reused as “isolation areas” for symptomatic students.

RELATED: Study: Coronary Virus Infectious Particles Can Survive in Clothing for Up to 3 Days

“Ideally, the dedicated isolation area will be inside the health room so that the student can be monitored visually by the school nurse while the student waits for his parents to transport him home,” a Horry County Schools District (HCS) o spokesman wrote. “In the case of Myrtle Beach Elementary School, an old warehouse located inside the health room and in sight of the school nurse is designated as an isolation area for a symptomatic student.”

The spokesman added that if a parent is unable to pick up their sick child by the end of the day, the child will be moved from the school’s isolation area to an unoccupied conference room, where he can be isolated and supervised by an adult.

HCS said on Thursday that it currently provides 5-day face-to-face instruction to all primary schools and has begun to accelerate the return of face-to-face instruction to its high schools.

After seeing two academic years diverted from the course by the pandemic, school leaders across the country are planning the possibility of more distance learning next fall, at the beginning of another school year.

“We have no illusions that COVID will be eradicated at the beginning of the school year,” said William “Chip” Sudderth III, a spokesman for schools in Durham, North Carolina, whose students have been out of school buildings since March. .

President Joe Biden has made reopening schools a top priority, but administrators say there is much to consider as new strains of the coronavirus emerge and teachers await their turn for vaccines.

And while many parents demand that schools reopen fully, others say they will not feel safe sending children back to classrooms until vaccines are available to even the youngest students. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s leading public health expert, said late last month that the Biden administration hopes to start vaccinating children in late spring or early summer.

Until then, the districts will be in preparation for the next school year.

“By 2021-22, at least part of that school year will probably still be related to the response to the pandemic, assuming that children will not have access to the vaccine, or at least many will not,” said Superintendent Brian Woods of the Northside Independent School District, a of the largest districts in Texas.

This may mean a more teacher-friendly version of the face-to-face and remote learning mix that is happening now, a version that does not require teachers to instruct two groups simultaneously. This could be achieved by dividing the team or reorganizing schedules, he said, adding that the longer term could be a totally remote option for students who have permanently left the traditional school.

In Durham, North Carolina, schools – which have been totally remote since March – announced last month that they would remain so until the end of the current school year.

In addition, Sudderth said, “the prevalence of the disease will determine what we are able to do.”

The guideline for determining whether the 32,000 student district could move from remote to hybrid learning in January was a test positivity rate below 4%. But it is not clear whether this metric or others that have so far been defined by states or districts will continue.

Biden, in an executive order, instructed his secretary of education to provide “evidence-based guidance” and advice for schools to conduct personal learning safely.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.