Delaware public schools report 130 COVID cases in one week

By Tim Mastro
Posted 9/16/21

There were 130 in-person contagious cases of COVID-19 among students in Delaware public schools over a seven-day period, accounting for 0.09% of the total population of students in school this year, according to information released by the Delaware Division of Public Health on Thursday.

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Delaware public schools report 130 COVID cases in one week

Posted

There were 130 in-person contagious cases of COVID-19 among students in Delaware public schools over a seven-day period, accounting for 0.09% of the total population of students in school this year, according to information released by the Delaware Division of Public Health on Thursday.

The data, which also shows 38 cases among staff, represents Sept. 4-10. The state estimated 141,040 students are back in school entirely in person this year, with masks required per an order from Gov. John Carney.

The Caesar Rodney School District accounted for the most in-person contagious cases with 17 out of 8,266 students, which is 0.2% of its student population. The Brandywine School District was next with 16 out of 10,602 students (0.15%).

The New Castle County Vocational-Technical School District reported 12 cases among 4,752 students (0.25%). All other school districts had less than 11 in-person cases, but DPH did not release the exact numbers to protect personal health information.

Public school enrollment data is preliminary and will be finalized in late October or early November, DPH said. Private school data is not yet available and will be released when those schools’ enrollment information is available later in the fall.

The data published Thursday was for all of Delaware’s public schools, which include 19 districts and all charter schools. Delaware has 23 charter schools, which are a part of the public school system.

In-person contagious cases are defined by DPH as “persons who were present at school as far back as 48 hours prior to the onset of symptoms (or test date if no symptoms). The source of infection of these cases cannot be attributed to schools, nor is it known that they are the source of infection to others in schools.”

Statewide, Delaware has averaged 475.1 new positive cases of the virus per day over the last week, including 565 positives reported in Thursday’s update. Delaware has recorded an all-time total of 126,604 COVID-19 cases.

The state’s seven-day rolling average for percentage of positive COVID-19 tests is 8.4%, as of Monday at 6 p.m. There is a two-day lag for presenting this data to account for the time delay between the date of a test and the date DPH receives the result.

The seven-day rolling average has been above the 8% mark for eight consecutive days and was as high as 9.3% on Sept. 10. The last time it was higher than 9% before this week was Jan. 19, when the state was coming down from the peak of the pandemic during the winter.

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