Just after a week into the new school year, nearly a thousand D.C. students and staff are quarantined following an exposure to the coronavirus.
As of Tuesday, D.C. Public Schools said that 40 staff members and 73 students reported positive test results.
One-hundred eighteen staff and 847 students at 37 campuses have been affected by the quarantines, including Johnson Middle School in Southeast D.C., where an entire sixth-grade class of 129 students has been told to quarantine. The sixth-graders are currently learning virtually, a D.C. schools spokesman said.
NBC Washington first reported that campuses had been affected.
At an event Wednesday, Mayor Muriel Bowser praised DCPS’ contact tracing efforts and encouraged all eligible students to get vaccinated. All D.C. government employees must be vaccinated by Sept. 19 or be subjected to weekly testing.
Bowser said that there will be cases of COVID-19, and she called system to detect those cases “robust.”
“So from my perspective, at this point, all of those detection systems and reporting systems are working the way they’ve been designed,” Bowser said.
D.C. is not the only jurisdiction with hundreds of students and staff in quarantine. Just five days after students returned to school in Montgomery County, Maryland, approximately 1,000 students and staff were told to quarantine.
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Looking for more information? D.C., Maryland and Virginia are each releasing more data every day. Visit their official sites here: Virginia | Maryland | D.C.
