Community Covid Update January 29, 2022

Lincoln Academy Community Covid Update
January 29, 2022

As we prepare for a significant winter storm on Saturday, I thought it important to offer some context on COVID-19 in our school community, and update how we will convey information as we head into what appears to be the waning of this wave of infection in Lincoln County.

This week we have confirmed 28 cases in the LA community, though not all of those cases were present on campus. Of those 28 cases, eight cases are among students who live in the dorm.

Our daily absence rate attributed to illness–not specifically COVID–has hovered consistently around 15% of our population since last week. While we are sorry to see any cases here at school, the stabilization of these numbers is a positive sign. We are confident in our strategies as we continue to see that most cases are not the result of in-school transmission.

We have been in contact with the CDC as our absence rate places us in “outbreak status.” As you probably remember from the fall, that does not bring new restrictions but does give us priority access to a designated employee at the CDC. They have been supportive of our practices, and continue encouraging us to keep school open 5 days a week.

Surveillance testing programs that include athletes, residential students, and staff are doing the job of identifying positive cases (both symptomatic and asymptomatic). This has made it possible to minimize contact and exposure with the general school population with a speed and accuracy we lacked in the fall.

We also have a dependable supply of individual testing kits. While it will take time for us to see a drop in transmission rates, we are confident that our Health Center staff can deal effectively in this ever-changing environment.

Moving forward, we plan to consolidate these weekly messages. Beginning next week, families can follow a link in the newsletter to the updated weekly totals on the LA website. This information will still be updated on Fridays, but I will no longer send out a weekly message just on COVID. Of course, you can reach out with any questions, but know the data will be publicly available to anyone wishing to see it.

Thank you for your support as we do everything we can to keep students in school. Masks and vaccines work, and are keeping us in school. I continue to be amazed and gratified by this community effort to keep everyone safe in a challenging time.

Be well and stay safe.