HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — The Guam Department of Education reported new cases at five schools Wednesday, raising the number of public schools with Covid-19 cases to 13.
Cleaning and sanitation were conducted and no public school will be closed because of Covid-19, according to JIC.
The 37 new cases of Covid-19 that were confirmed Wednesday include five GDOE students — one case was reported at each of five affected schools. GDOE schools now have a total of 15 Covid-19 cases.
As of Aug. 17, a total of 106,108 or 77.85% of Guam’s vaccine-eligible population age 12 years and older have been fully vaccinated, according to the Joint Information Center. This percentage includes 8,444 fully vaccinated residents between the ages of 12 to 17, as well as Guam’s fully vaccinated adult population of 97,664.
In collaboration with the Department of Public Health and Social Services, GDOE has identified and notified teachers as well as parents of students who may have been in contact with the positive cases to schedule testing. Tested individuals will remain in quarantine until they are cleared by DPHSS to return to campus. Cleaning and disinfecting of areas of the campuses took place Wednesday to ensure schools are ready for regular hours of operation, according to JIC.
The following schools are affected:
• Adacao Elementary School, 1 case reported Wednesday, out of 390 students;
• Machananao Elementary School, 1 case reported Wednesday, out of 382 students;
• Agueda I. Johnston Middle School, 2 cases reported including 1 on Wednesday, out of 595 students;
• George Washington High School, 1 case reported Wednesday, out of 1,359 students;
• Okkodo High School, 1 case reported Wednesday, out of 1,395 students;
• Tiyan High School, 1 case reported Wednesday, out of 997 students;
• F.B. Leon Guerrero Middle School, 1 case reported out of 836 students;
• Finegayan Elementary School, 1 case reported out of 695 students;
• Harry S. Truman Elementary School, 1 case reported out of 296 students;
• Maria Ulloa Elementary School, 1 case reported out of 594 students;
• Upi Elementary School, 1 case reported out of 476 students;
• Vicente Benavente Middle School, 1 case reported out of 820 students; and
• L.P. Untalan Middle School, 2 cases were reported out of 806 students.
Quarantine
GDOE has confirmed that over 100 Untalan Middle School students were placed in quarantine in the first few days of school.
“At Untalan, it’s more than a hundred students who are quarantined, and that’s just a fact. Every school, we do have students who have been quarantined,” said GDOE Superintendent Jon Fernandez.
As the number of positive cases increases in the community, he said, it’s a given that the number of positive cases seen at the schools would also increase.
“It was evident as we approached the school year that we may see students or employees on campus who are identified as positives through the course of the school year. In those first days, we’ve been very transparent in reporting our cases and we were able to report the cases that we found at our schools,” Fernandez said.
When GDOE initially received the reports, they worked closely with the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services on the response.
“Public Health has requested that we take what I would say is an overly cautious approach in these first weeks as we start to bring kids back,” Fernandez said.
At the elementary level, entire classes were identified as contacts for quarantine and testing, including the teacher.
But at the secondary level, the broader approach to contact tracing is disruptive, as was seen at UMS, where students attend six to seven classes in a day.
“All of those classes were notified to go ahead and contact, quarantine and be tested including the teachers. It’s very disruptive at the secondary level and it’s the reason why we met with Public Health to really determine how we were going to proceed during these first weeks knowing that this approach is overly cautious in terms of trying to test,” Fernandez said.
6-foot radius for close contacts
Fernandez said they will be adjusting going forward so that instead of looking at quarantining entire classes, the 6-foot radius would be used to identify the cluster of close contacts around the student.
Public Health will use class seating charts moving forward to identify a positive student’s close contacts to limit effects on those who did not fall into the close contact category.
Without the results of the tests, GDOE can’t determine if there was any spread of Covid-19 on the campus.
“Right now we don’t have any indication of spread, what we have are initial reports of students that are positive and we are now in the midst of quarantining and testing contacts and then in a few days we should get the results so that we can then determine what’s happening in our schools whether these protective measures are effective and then what to do going forward,” Fernandez said.
To assist in the effort, GDOE and Public Health will be working together to train and authorize school nurses and other trained personnel to administer Covid-19 tests at schools as part of the rapid response.
“That will help us get the testing schedule quickly and the results back quicker,” Fernandez said.
Meanwhile students in quarantine are being afforded online learning opportunities while at home.
But, according to Fernandez, GDOE does not have the capacity to transfer student from face-to-face instruction to online learning.
“We understand that there are concerns and those concerns will probably fluctuate day-to-day but at this point we are allowing for them to switch at second semester. Simply because we don’t have the teachers for online and we are already at capacity,” Fernandez said.
School buses depart Untalan Middle School in Barrigada Guam on Friday afternoon.
