MENTOR, Ohio — Four staff members from Hopkins Elementary School in the Mentor School District are confirmed to have COVID-19. The Lake County General Health Department (LCGHD) is now taking action.
The LCGHD defines an outbreak as "two or more cases".
All students and teachers will now teach and learn virtually for two weeks since the principal and three teachers confirmed they have COVID-19. In a school board meeting Tuesday night, Mentor Schools Superintendent William Porter explained that move.
“We made the decision to close the schools which allows for a two week recommended window to stop any further exposure at the school after having four active cases,” says Porter.
Because of the spread, the Lake County General Health District says it’s taking action deploying contact tracers.
Dan Lark, Lake County General Health District Director of Environmental Health says they will follow up with each of the school personnel to ask a series of questions.
“They ask who have you been with before symptoms started 48 hours before? Who have you been in contact with? Who might you be in close contact to whether family or work or anything like that within 6 feet?” says Lark.
If anyone else connected to the school outbreak tests positive, the public will be notified.
“We continue to work diligently with the lake county general health district and in turn communicate as much necessary information with parents and staff,” says Porter.
In order to make sure no students or staff get sick when they return to school, Hopkins Elementary is undergoing a deep clean.
“They’re all using you know EPA and CDC approved sanitizers to go through the room, they have sprayers to really mist and get all the surfaces well,” says Lark.
Even with contact tracing, quarantine, and cleaning, health officials say it’s just a matter of time before this cycle repeats itself.
“So as long as were seeing consistent spread throughout each of our counties and cities, there’s a high likelihood that someone is going to bring it into the schools also,” says Lark.
The Mentor School System has had one student test positive, but says that student is enrolled in online school only and had not been on school campus at all.