Virus cases down for schools in Texas region

The latest school district COVID data released by the Texas Department of State Health Services shows a low number of cases throughout the last two reporting periods.

Data including cases reported from Nov. 16-29 displayed only seven school districts in Bowie or Cass County with new cases.

Only two Cass County districts reported new cases — Atlanta Independent School District and Hughes Springs ISD.

Atlanta reported five new student cases and two new staff cases, bringing their respective totals since the beginning of the reporting periods in July to 50 students and 28 staff members.

Their total student positivity rate among on-campus students is now at 3.0%, which ranks in the lower half of Cass districts.

Student positivity rates largely remained the same as the last batch of reports showed, with only two districts reporting new student cases due to holiday breaks, although this may slightly vary due to updated on-campus student enrollment populations.

Hughes Springs ISD added four new staff cases, bringing its staff total to 12.

In Bowie County, five districts reported new cases.

Texarkana ISD reported 11 — six staff members and five students — bringing its student total to 119 and staff total to 106.

After the on-campus student enrollment populations were updated, they are now have a student positivity rate of about 2.2%, which is close to average in the county.

Other Bowie districts to add new cases include Simms ISD, three staff members; Red Lick, two staff members; DeKalb, one staff member; and New Boston, one staff member.

Source-of-infection data was largely unavailable for the local districts in the newest reports.