As schools reopen, some run into snags

John Broadley, assistant principal at Bellows Falls Union High School in Westminster, Vt., checks the temperature of U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., on Friday as part of a screening process for anyone entering the building during the covid-19 pandemic. Welch visited the staff that was preparing and distributing meals for the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union summer meals program.
(AP/The Brattleboro Reformer/Kristopher Radder)
John Broadley, assistant principal at Bellows Falls Union High School in Westminster, Vt., checks the temperature of U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., on Friday as part of a screening process for anyone entering the building during the covid-19 pandemic. Welch visited the staff that was preparing and distributing meals for the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union summer meals program. (AP/The Brattleboro Reformer/Kristopher Radder)

INDIANAPOLIS -- As the first students return to American classrooms, many face a profoundly altered experience, where sitting next to a friend on a long bus ride or unmasking at a busy table in the cafeteria carries a heightened level of risk.

Most schools have yet to open, and a growing number -- especially in the nation's largest districts -- are opting to stay online as caseloads, hospitalizations and deaths continue to climb in their states.

New York schools can bring children back to classrooms for the start of the school year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday, citing success in battling the coronavirus in the state that once was the U.S. heart of the pandemic.

The Democratic governor's decision clears the way for schools to offer at least some days of in-person classes, alongside remote learning. Students will be required to wear masks throughout each school day.

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"Everywhere in the state, every region is below the threshold that we established," Cuomo told reporters. He said New York can revisit the issue if the infection rate spikes.

In some places, including Indiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia, students began streaming back into classrooms as early as last week, with quarantines quickly following.

Elwood Junior-Senior High School in Indiana reverted to remote learning after positive tests -- which now include at least two students -- were reported, although it plans to reopen. Just hours into the first day of the new year at Greenfield Central Junior High outside Indianapolis, administrators received word that a student had tested positive.

Kennedy Heim's first day of high school was July 30. By the weekend, her school in central Indiana had already closed its doors, after a staff member tested positive for the coronavirus and other employees were required to quarantine.

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Kennedy's mother got a call from a contact tracer saying her daughter, a 14-year-old freshman, might have been exposed. So on Monday, they went for testing at the National Guard Armory, just down the street from her school. On Wednesday morning, they got the results: Kennedy had tested positive.

"I just felt like I had a cold," she said.

At North Paulding High in Dallas, Ga., a series of widely shared photos showed students crowded into packed hallways during their first days back to class this week. Few were wearing masks, and there was little sign of social distancing, generating criticism and outrage in news reports and on social media.

A 15-year-old student at North Paulding, Hannah Watters, was suspended for five days for posting some of those images on Twitter, said her mother, Lynne Watters, who said she filed a grievance with the school Thursday.

In Baton Rouge, the Zachary school district announced that it will delay the reopening of its schools because of the pandemic, after officials said nearly 20 teachers were infected or had been exposed to the coronavirus and other staff members quit ahead of the year's start.

QUICK QUARANTINE

The entire football team and marching band at an Alabama high school are under quarantine after exposure to the virus.

Oneonta High School coach Phil Phillips told WBMA-TV that a fifth player has tested positive. It's the second quarantine of the summer for the team.

"I looked my wife in the eyes Monday night before I went to bed and I said, 'You know I sure hope we didn't kill anybody's grandmother today by having a football practice," said Phillips. "You're torn because the kids want to play so bad."

The team stopped summer workouts in late July after two coaches and four players tested positive for the coronavirus.

Band director David Bearden said one of 135 students tested positive in his group, so a quarantine was needed.

"For me personally, I know that this is a big thing and it's hurt a lot of people, but for me personally, I'm looking forward to a time when we can all get back together, the students back together, and based on what I've seen from my students, they are needing that," Bearden said.

The town of 6,600 people is about 35 miles northeast of Birmingham.

Schools around the state are resuming classes with a variety of plans ranging from virtual teaching to traditional classrooms and a mix of the two.

NUMBERS IN DOUBT

After a spiraling coronavirus outbreak that pushed California to the most infections in the U.S., the trends appear to be brightening: Daily reported cases have plunged, as has the rate of tests that come back positive.

However, it's unclear if those figures are accurate.

California officials have uncovered a bug in their virus reporting effort -- the nation's largest, with more than 120,000 people tested each day.

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On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom touted a 21% drop in the average daily rate of new cases from the previous week as a sign of stabilization. The next day, his top public health official warned that the numbers were probably too low -- by how much he couldn't say -- and the state didn't know when the problem would be fixed.

"We don't know if our cases are plateauing, rising or decreasing," Sara Cody, public health director for Silicon Valley's Santa Clara County, said at a news briefing. "I would say that right now we're back to feeling blind."

Florida -- home to the second-most U.S. cases -- briefly paused its own testing program due to Hurricane Isaias.

Texas, meanwhile, has adjusted its data-collection methods several times for both new cases and death counts, at one point sending its reported fatalities surging 13% in one day.

Tracking the trajectory of the outbreak is key: States trying to restart their economies need accurate, up-to-date numbers to monitor their progress against the pandemic. So do school districts debating when to allow students back on campus. And contact tracing -- calling people who may have come into contact with an infected person -- is impossible without fast results.

TESTING NOT PERFECT

In Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, 73, tested negative for covid-19 on Thursday after testing positive earlier in the day just before he was to meet with President Donald Trump in Cleveland, according to a statement from his office.

His wife, Fran DeWine, also tested negative, as did staff members. They underwent a different type of test in Columbus, one considered more accurate than the rapid-result test that showed DeWine to be positive.

The conflicting results underscore the problems with both kinds of tests and are bound to spur more questions about them. Many people in the U.S. can't get lab results on the more accurate version for weeks, rather than the few hours it took the governor to find out.

The governor and first lady plan to undergo another test today, according to the statement.

Dewine said he didn't know how he would have contracted the coronavirus and that he's already been spending much of his time at his farm, keeping his distance from family members and staff.

"The lesson that should come from this is that we're all human, this virus is everywhere, this virus is very tough," DeWine said before the negative result. "And, yes, you can contract it even when you're being very, very careful and even when you're wearing a mask."

But, the governor said, "the odds are dramatically better" if people wear masks.

In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly tested negative Friday as a Republican legislative leader faced criticism from some Democrats for not telling colleagues until this week that he'd been infected and hospitalized before he, Kelly and other top lawmakers had a public meeting last month.

Fellow Republican leaders defended House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr., saying he took more than adequate precautions to prevent spreading the virus after learning he might have it July 10 and had been cleared by a doctor before attending a meeting with Kelly on July 29 at the Statehouse. They also accused the Democratic governor of politicizing his case.

Ryckman is the highest-ranking Kansas official known to have been infected. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt of neighboring Oklahoma tested positive last month.

In Louisiana, Gov. John Bel Edwards is questioning why the state must pay a portion of the costs to use the state's National Guard in coronavirus response work if the federal government is picking up the full tab in some other states.

The Democratic governor sent a letter to Trump on Friday, asking that the federal government continue to cover all costs of activating the Louisiana National Guard as it did earlier this year. If Louisiana has to pay a 25% share through December, that would cost the state $2.5 million a month, Edwards said.

Louisiana is using 1,100 members of the National Guard to staff virus testing sites, support food bank operations and distribute protective equipment to hospitals, schools and other locations.

In previous months of the outbreak, Louisiana had full federal funding for the activation. But Trump changed the reimbursement terms in the latest authorization for Louisiana to use its National Guard in coronavirus response.

Edwards said at least two other states -- Texas and Florida -- received similar extensions for their National Guard activation, but with full federal funding.

7-YEAR-OLD SUCCUMBS

Meanwhile, in Georgia, a 7-year-old boy with covid-19 has become the youngest known person to die in that state since the pandemic began, state health officials reported.

The boy had no other chronic health conditions, according to data released by the state. The case is from Chatham County, which includes Savannah, the Georgia Department of Public Health reported. The child is Black, but state data lists no other details about him or the death.

The boy's death comes amid nationwide debate about the risks that children face in getting infected or spreading the coronavirus, particularly as the school year begins. There is no indication in the health department's reports about where or when the child contracted the virus.

Before the boy's death, Georgia's youngest death was that of a 17-year-old Black person in Fulton County who had undisclosed health issues in addition to covid-19. More than 30 people in their 20s also have died, state data shows.

The trend in recently reported deaths in Georgia hit a record Friday, with an average of 52 deaths a day reported over the past week, as the state's total death toll rose to at least 4,117.

The number of people hospitalized in Georgia with confirmed covid-19 cases dropped under 3,000 on Friday for the first time since July 18.

Information for this article was contributed by Adam Wren and Dan Levin of The New York Times; by David R. Baker and Jonathan Levin of Bloomberg News; and by Farnoush Amiri, Dan Sewell, John Hanna, Marina Villeneuve and Andrew Welsh-Huggins of The Associated Press.

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