Monongalia County students are seeing red this morning — and not just because a few might be annoyed about returning to school after a long holiday break.
That’s because red is inevitable these days in the Mountain State.
Mon is keeping company with 38 of West Virginia’s 55 counties that presented with the shade the day before on the County Alert Map, maintained by the state Department of Health and Human Resources.
Just four counties — Pendleton, Tucker, Lewis, and Calhoun — were showing green during that same update, the safest color in tracking the pandemic.
Currently, 5,356 West Virginians have died from COVID and its complications.
The total includes the 20 deaths reported since the DHHR’s previous update of Dec. 30. The DHHR on Monday also reported 15,015 active cases in state, counting the more than 9,000 positive diagnoses from the previous report.
What that means for the first day back today, Mon’s Deputy Schools Superintendent Donna Talerico said, is more of the same for now.
The district, she said, will keep its protocols going into the spring term, despite hints last month that the mask mandate for students, teachers and staff might be lessened as early as mid-January, depending upon case trends.
“We know delta and omicron cases are on the upswing,” Talerico said Monday.
“With things so uncertain right now, we’re just going to stay where we are.”
Mon Schools went into the holiday break with 28 positive cases among students. Another three staffers also came down with COVID.
A total of 94 students and six other staffers ended the 2021 portion of the year on quarantine.
The county is also keeping its 10- and 14-day statutes for anyone in the district diagnosed with COVID or exposed to someone who has tested positive, Talerico said.
In the meantime, vaccines paid a big visit to the nation Monday.
As reported by the Associated Press, the U.S. is expanding COVID-19 boosters as it confronts the omicron surge — with the Food and Drug Administration allowing extra Pfizer shots for children as young as 12.
Boosters already are recommended for everyone 16 and older, and federal regulators on Monday decided they’re also warranted for 12- to 15-year-olds once enough time has passed since their last dose.
But the move, coming as classes restart after the holidays, isn’t the final step, the AP said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must decide whether to recommend boosters for the younger teens. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, is expected to rule later this week.
In Mon County, the news is something the district will mobilize for, Talerico said.
“It’s a little soon for us right now,” the deputy superintendent said of the announcement, “but it’s definitely on our radar.”
More shots in arms, as she has long contended, means more normalcy in a time when such a state of being is scarce.
“We’ve had some pretty good luck in keeping our kids in school,” she said.
“We just hope it holds. And we’re definitely glad to be back.”
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