Mountain Vista back to in-school classes
LAKE COUNTY >> Much like the rest of the state, the country and the world, Lake County is once again seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases following the winter holidays with outbreaks happening in schools. One local school impacted by the surging pandemic has made adjustments to its instructional protocol. Mountain Vista Middle School, in Kelseyville Unified School District, suspended on-campus, in-person instruction for three days last week (Jan. 6, 7,10) due to a staff shortage resulting from COVID exposure, according to district officials. Students were told to do short-term independent study until today (Tuesday, Jan. 11), when they are expected to be back on campus. The staff gave the students school work in the form of paper packets last Friday.
KVUSD Superintendent Dave McQueen said Thursday that the district could not provide information on the total number of staff out because of COVID due to privacy concerns and added that measures were taken to keep everyone in the school safe from infections. In an effort to inform the public if similar COVID-related actions have been taken at other schools, calls also were made to and voice mail messages were left for or with the other school district superintendents last Friday. Call recipients at Lakeport Unified School District and Lucerne Elementary said their schools were not closing. Middletown, Upper Lake and Konocti districts did not return the request for a response by press time.
Following California Department of Public Health (CDPH) guidelines, the Mountain Vista website stipulates that if a student or someone in a student’s household has COVID symptoms, the student should stay home and not go to school. Free home tests are available to the students from the Kelseyville Unified School District office. Or a COVID test may be scheduled by calling the KVUSD nurse line at (707) 279-2410.
Acting Lake County Public Health Officer, Dr.
Gary Pace, reminds members of school communities to follow isolation and quarantine guidelines from the CDPH. These guidelines and other safety measures can be found at https://www.cdph.ca.gov/ Programs/CID/DCDC/ Pages/COVID-19/K-12Guidance-2021-22-SchoolYear.aspx.
For vaccinated or nonvaccinated students who are infected by the virus, even if they don’t have symptoms, the CDPH says “isolation can end after Day 5 if symptoms are not present or are resolving and a diagnostic specimen collected on Day 5 or later tests negative.”
Pace continues to call for vaccinations for all eligible people as well as testing. “Vaccination may be
the most important step to take,” Pace said, in a media release. “Everyone who is eligible should get vaccinated and boosted. While vaccinated people can still catch and spread the virus, the contagious period is shorter for vaccinated folks, and the vaccine definitely makes it less likely someone will enter the hospital…We encourage testing when symptomatic or after close contact. If a student is positive, they should isolate, per the guidelines.”
Lake County’s hospital emergency rooms recently have seen an increase in the number of patients seeking non-emergency medical services. Pace advises that the emergency rooms of hospitals are not the appropriate sites to go to for vaccinations, COVID testing and other non-emergencies. “Please remember that we are a small, rural county, and we have limited intensive
care and emergency medicine resources,” Pace said. ““The limited staffed beds and other resources we have must be reserved for those in medical distress — those in need of immediate care. Use of these resources for other purposes, like routine COVID-19 testing for people with only mild symptoms, extends wait times, and delays care for those in the greatest need. People with mild symptoms should contact their medical providers and nursing advice lines, rather than going straight to the emergency room. If you are in need of immediate medical care, go to the ER. If you are mildly ill, use other resources.”
More information about vaccinations and testing resources are available at http://health.co.lake.ca.us/Coronavirus/Vaccines.htm and http://health.co.lake.ca.us/Coronavirus/Testing.htm.