‘Good practices’ slow spread of covid

Numbers of quarantined declined

Pea Ridge School District officials are keeping a close eye on covid cases and posting statistics on its website weekly.

The School Board did not mandate face masks this year. The rules for quarantine changed as provided by state officials based on vaccinations and wearing face masks.

As of Monday, Sept. 30,the number of persons quarantined dropped from 275 to 157, according to assistant superintendent Kevin Ramey.

“It’s starting to slow down. We’re hoping that continues,” he said. “We’re closely monitoring and reassessing classrooms, creating more distance between people.”

Ramey said people are much more aware of using good hygiene practices.

“It’s everybody taking care of good practices — washing their hands, being socially distant.” Ramey said if people stay six feet away, they don’t have to quarantine.

“Six feet and 15 minutes is still good practice. If you adhere to social distance practices, you’re not going to be quarantined.”

He said the delta variant is more transmissible.

“We’re trying to separate as much as possible,” he said.

Ramey also said: “If you’ve been positive within 90 days, you don’t have to quarantine.”

Last year, the first positive case of covid was not reported in the district until after Labor Day. He said the numbers of positive cases increased after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

“With all of the guidance changing, all of the way society has kind of re-opened back up, it has allowed for covid to continue to spread a little bit.

“A year ago, we were every other row and limiting numbers of people in bleachers. You have society opening back up a little bit more,” he said.

“Most people have been understanding,” Ramey said. He said guidance is not as cut and dried as it was a year ago, and much of it depends on vaccinations.

“We’re just trying to navigate the rules and guidelines from the departments of health and education and adhere to the guidelines. There are times it gets confusing and frustrating,” he said.

“We try to do the best we can. For the most part, our community has been very understanding of what we’ve done.”