DCSD ‘coming out’ of the COVID surge
By Bobby Bryant, Editor
editor@newsandpress.net
Darlington County’s public schools are “coming out of the surge” as the latest threat from COVID-19 seems to be receding, officials say.
“The numbers are coming down now, and we are once again coming out of the surge – our fourth surge we have been through,” county Education Superintendent Tim Newman told the school board Feb. 14.
“It wouldn’t be a board meeting without talking about COVID,” Newman said. “ … But it’s a much better conversation today than what it was several weeks ago, and certainly three weeks ago.”
Newman said the Darlington County School District’s COVID numbers are “continuing to drop quickly.” As of Feb. 14, he said, the state was reporting 1,593 new cases, with nine new cases in Darlington County. About a month ago, he said, the state was reporting 28,000 new cases in one day.
“The numbers are coming significantly down,” Newman said. “We expect that to continue each day, and that’s why we are really planning on being above this last surge, and moving into better times in many ways.”
The district is developing a plan to begin using “test to stay,” a strategy that allows students and staffers to continue in-person learning while minimizing quarantines. “Test to stay” is described as a program that, “when combined with regular mitigation measures (e.g., masking, social distancing, etc.), allows individuals who are identified as a close contact to a case of COVID-19 in certain school settings to continue in-person learning, so long as they remain asymptomatic and serially test negative for COVID-19.”
“I’d like to say we won’t have to deal with this again,” Newman said of the most recent COVID surge. “But I think if history tells us anything (over) the past two years, in about four or five months, we’re probably going to have to deal with something. We just don’t know if it’s going to be significant or not.”
Assuming that it will be several months before another surge, Newman said, “We need to open up. … We need to allow our schools to be more open to volunteers, visitors. We need to open our cafeterias up, and have our kids be able to eat in cafeterias” rather than classrooms.
“We still need to be careful,” he said. “We can’t act as if COVID is gone. But I think we know how to deal with COVID at this point in time.”