ELY – On the heels of ISD 696 following the lead of state and federal officials in reducing the required quarantine period of those who test positive for COVID-19, local health officials on the Ely Safe Learning Plan Advisory Council (ELSPAC) recently voiced their concerns.
Students and staff are now allowed to return to school five days after showing symptoms or testing positive, following action by the Ely school board at an emergency meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 18.
Two days later, at what was superintendent Erik Erie’s final advisory council meeting, Heather Holthaus, of the Essentia Ely Clinic, questioned the new rules amid recent reports that indicate the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has reached its peak. “I wasn’t excited at all to see the change in quarantine (rules),” she said. “We are still seeing plenty of COVID coming through.”
Holthous related that many people are testing negative for the antigens at the peak of symptoms, and then testing positive a couple of days later. “I question whether or not that is why Omicron is so contagious,” she said. “People are contagious in the beginning and they are not testing positive. I’ve had other families who said they tested negative with the nasal swab and then test positive with the throat (swab).”
The Ely school board’s decision to cut the isolation period in half, going from 10 days to five days, allowed nearly 50 students, according to K-12 principal Anne Oelke, to return to school the following day rather than remain isolated from the campus.
The new guidelines allow students and staff to return to campus as long as they are symptom free and do not have a fever.
Holthaus continues to advocate for different COVID-19 testing methods for the Ely Essentia health facility. “Even here, I’ve broached that with the powers that be and the higher ups with Essentia. They are looking into maybe some different types of testing. As far as testing goes with us, we are still coming back with 50- to 55-percent of the people who are tested coming back positive,” she said.
Superintendent Erik Erie told the ESLPAC that school administrators consulted with local health care professionals before bringing the recommendation to the school board.
According to the most recent report, the Ely schools COVID-19 positive test count on Jan. 27 was at 10. The cumulative positive test count so far for the 2021-22 school year stood at 177, according to Erie. A total of 48 positive cases were recorded during the 2020-21 school year.
At the Jan. 20 ESLPAC meeting, St. Louis County Department of Health consultant Aubrie Hoover provided some “happier” news. “For 5-11 years-olds, in all of St. Louis County, 34 percent have had their first (COVID-19 vaccine) dose, and 29 percent have completed the series,” she said.
For St. Louis County 12-17 year olds, the vaccination rate was stuck at 49 percent for many weeks, according to Hoover. “Now we have 50 percent who have had one dose and 46 percent have completed that series,” she said.
The Ely school district, and other regional school systems, have ping-ponged their coronavirus quarantine policies over the past two years, including 14-day requirements for those with positive cases and those who might have come in close contact with positive cases, perhaps even entire classrooms. Quarantine periods have steadily been shortened since the beginning of the 2021-22 school year.
The Ely school board’s latest revision to the district’s safe learning plan also eliminated provisions to transition individual elementary classrooms to distance-learning if multiple cases were identified in a classroom within seven days, and to consider quarantine and distance learning for middle and high-school groups when more than one case is identified in a classroom.
Protective face masks remain a requirement for all students, staff and visitors indoors on the Ely school campus, except during after-school extra-curricular activities.
Vaccine rate metrics
An Ely school board member continued to push for the vaccine rate metric to be considered in adjusting the school’s face mask mandate.
“We should be having a discussion about consulting with local medical professionals about a campus-wide vaccination percentage that would also trigger going to masks recommended,” Tom Omerza said.
Erie responded, “We haven’t pursued that any further. There has been some discussion, and I think at the time, we didn’t have (access) to the staff rate. We reported two weeks ago that 86 percent (of Ely school staff) had the first dose. I’m assuming by now they have had their second dose. And that’s good news. We haven’t taken that any further but we could certainly discuss that.”
Omerza speculated that the new superintendent, coming on board at the beginning of February, will continue to lead ESLPAC meetings.
“We have a little while before that happens to try to get a local medical community perspective on that,” he said. “Our group here could certainly consider a possible recommendation to the administration and school board.”
Last fall, local physician Dr. Joseph Bianco said that if the Ely vaccination rate was 80 percent or more, face masking wouldn’t need to be a consideration.
“I think we have to look past the huge challenge we are having right now,” Omerza said. “We are going to get past this. We need to be a little more proactive than reactive. Let’s plan ahead a little bit so we can be ready to move once Omicron is down and if there’s not six more Greek letters of variants coming out around the world, and the hospitals aren’t packed, we should be ready to make a move.”
Erie implored the Essentia Ely Clinic and EBCH representatives to have the vaccine percentage conversation within their facilities to determine a threshold recommendation.
Holthaus said she’s had that discussion with Dr. Bianco numerous times.
“I don’t foresee his thoughts changing on those numbers,” she said. “We have vaccines ready to go. We have wide open schedules. I’m seeing not so many five-to 11-year-olds. That is a hit or miss at this point. We are seeing a hefty decline in vaccinations.”
She said she did not see a COVID-19 vaccine goal of 80 percent happening in Ely.
Omerza pressed the issue. “It is not being communicated. What is the incentive of having a vaccine? (No face masks) could be an added incentive for parents to consider,” he said. “We need consistent communication to get the vaccine. Help yourself, help the community.”
Oelke said she includes in her weekly update to parents that many financial incentives are available from the State of Minnesota to entice families to get their children vaccinated.
Ely 6-12 principal Megan Anderson added, “I am on board to get rid of masks. Nobody wants to be in these, but right now, it is not even on my radar that that could be something we are looking at with the rates climbing the way they are. I can’t imagine taking masks away.”
Tiffany Zemke, the ELSPAC’ Ely-Bloomenson Community Hospital representative, confirmed that positive COVID-19 cases continue to come through the local health facility. “We are having people coming to the (Emergency Room) that are positive, but also some that may test negative. Our COVID wing does remain open, fortunately we have no one now in there with COVID which is kind of nice,” she said.
“The big thing is that it is not just COVID out there,” Zemke added. “We’ve seen influenza, rhinovirus, common colds, there’s a lot of things going on out there. Overall, we are holding our own here.”
The next ELSPAC could be on Thursday, Feb. 3, depending on scheduling by new ISD 696 superintendent John Klarich, who begins his duties at the beginning of February.
“I want to thank you personally for being part of this group,” Erie said before ending his final ELSPAC meeting. “I want to thank everybody for their input and patience. This has been important work that you have been doing. Your feedback and participation has been really important to me and the school district.”