Coronavirus Cases Among Students, Staff Drop In CT

CONNECTICUT — Schools in Connecticut reported decreases in the number of reported coronavirus cases among students and staff in the past week. It was the first drop since the school year began and the decrease was among students at all learning levels.

The state Department of Education reported 354 cases among staff and 918 among students between Nov. 19 and 25; that is a drop of 133 (27 percent) cases among staff and 228 (20 percent) among students from the previous reporting week. The total number of identified cases was the still the second highest in a week since the school year began.

The cases are recorded whether students or staff are in-person or remote and haven’t entered a school building.

There were 281 cases among students whose districts are primarily operating for in-person learning, 421 among hybrid learning districts and 211 among remote districts. That is a drop of 19 percent, 17 percent and 23 percent respectively among the learning models compared to the past reporting week.

The large majority of infections among students and staff are caused by activity outside the school building, Gov. Ned Lamont has said, citing contact tracing data.

In-person learning drops

Fewer than half of all Connecticut school districts are offering predominately full in-person learning for the first time since early October.

Around 45 percent of school districts were offering full in-person learning between Nov. 16 and 20 compared to nearly 51 percent between Nov. 9 and 13, according to SDE. The in-person learning was the largest week-over-week percentage point drop since the start of the school year.

The number is sure to decrease again in next week’s report as a number of school districts including Milford and Stratford preemptively decided to temporarily switch to remote learning after the Thanksgiving break.

The SDE classifies school district learning models by how the majority grade levels are learning. Several school districts have switched high school students to remote learning in an effort to bolster in-person staffing for the lower grade levels where students typically have a harder time with remote lessons.