Coronavirus In Schools: 676 Cases Involving Staff, Students

CONNECTICUT — Connecticut reported an increase in coronavirus cases among students and staff in the past week, but the levels remain below the state’s average.

There were 457 new students and 219 staff coronavirus cases reported between Oct. 29 and Nov. 4 in Connecticut schools. That’s a combined 676 cases over a week (average of about 97 per day) out of an estimated school community population of 600,000 people.

That’s an increase of 166 cases for students and 63 for staff compared to the previous reporting week, according to the state Department of Education.

The data doesn’t show where students contracted the virus, but Gov. Ned Lamont has said that contact tracing data shows that a high majority happen outside of schools.

"Wearing a mask in the classroom is you know, one of the safest places to be right now," he said during a Thursday news conference.

No school had six or more cases within the past reporting period. See how many cases your town’s schools had here.

For students there were 158 cases for those in a school district with full in-person learning, 215 with hybrid learning and 83 under remote learning.

Connecticut recently began a K-12 pilot program using the Binax rapid antigen coronavirus test. The test provides coronavirus results within 15 minutes for symptomatic people. The plan is to use the tests if a student becomes symptomatic in the middle of the school day so superintendents can quickly find out whether they have to quarantine students and teachers.

Remote students and learning models

The percentage of students who are fully remote dropped slightly from 34.4 percent to 34.2 percent between Oct. 19 and 23 and Oct. 26 and 30. About 2.5 percent of remote learners were classified as fully disconnected between Oct. 26 and 30, which is comparable to previous weeks.

More school districts began offering predominately full in-person learning in the last week of October. The percentage of districts offering mostly fully in-person learning increased slightly from 53.3 percent to 54.8 percent between Oct. 19 and 23 and Oct. 26 and 30. That is up from 33.5 percent between Sept. 14 and 18.