Greenwich schools report 38 COVID cases at end of first week back in classrooms in 2021.

GREENWICH — The Greenwich Public School district was reporting 38 new positive cases of COVID-19 on Friday, which marked the end of the first week of in-person classroom learning since the holiday recess.

It’s the highest weekover-week increase in the number of positive cases since the start of school, according to the district’s online tracker. Since the start of January, including some days of holiday recess and a week of remote learning, the district has reported 76 new cases, bringing the total since the start of the year to 275.

The 32 active cases affect 13 different schools across the district. Of those active cases, 30 were traced back to outside or family transmission, and two were attributed to undetermined community exposure. Zero cases were said to have been linked to in-school transmission.

According to the district, just four of the 275 cases since the start of school have been traced to inschool exposure.

The increase comes amid what health experts predicted would be a postholiday bump in cases through the middle part of January. Other school districts in the region are also reporting sharp increases in the number of positives since returning to school. Norwalk Public Schools, for instance, reported 86 new cases in its first week back.

In Greenwich, the vast majority of the coronavirus cases reported this year — 209 cases — have been among students. Of the rest of the cases since the start of school, 32 were teachers, 21 were service providers, three were administrators and 10 were nonteaching staff members.