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Clockwise from top left: Director of Public Health Sofia Pereira, County Health Officer Ian Hoffman and Joint Information Center COVID- Public Information Officer 19 Humboldt County Meriah Miracle at a press conference Wednesday.
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Since its launch on Monday, a petition asking Humboldt County Public Health to start posting case numbers to local schools on their COVID dashboard has collected the signatures of 740 people.
But at a press conference on Wednesday, Director of Public Health Sofia Pereira and County Health Officer Ian Hoffman said reporting the data was not as straightforward as the petitioners seem to hope.
The petition is, in part, the result of a Facebook group – data from the Humboldt school corona virus COVID-19 – which was launched just a few days ago. Families are notified when their children are exposed to a COVID-positive individual at school, but the information is not published anywhere. The goal of the Facebook group is to create an informal log of COVID cases in local schools based on posts from parents who have been made aware of a case.
“We realized that what needs to happen is not a DIY tally,” said at Outpost. “It just has to go to the portal and be updated every week. ”
So, together with other parents, August started the petition. He is asking that positive school case numbers and exhibit numbers be added to the county’s COVID dashboard.
“Children cannot stand up for themselves,” August said. “They are the only group that has no say, no vote. So, as adults, we have a responsibility to protect them and make sure they reach adulthood safely. “
Some parents in the Facebook group have reported on the Del Norte Unified School District, which is recording COVID cases at school in its own dashboard. But that’s not quite the same as what the petition is asking for, as DNUSD publishes the data, not their public health department.
Parents should direct their efforts to specific school districts for a system like this. The Humboldt County Office of Education would not be able to develop a scorecard because schools do not need to notify HCOE when they have a positive case.
Ishan Steelhead, the parent who created the Facebook group, told the Outpost that parents seek information to better understand the risk when choosing to send their children to school, and so that school staff can also have more information about the potential risks of going to work . He actually got the idea from a teacher, who told him that they were surprised that the information was not published anywhere.
“It’s just wanting the data and the information to make smart choices,” Steelhead said. “We do this out of a desire for knowledge.
Steelhead acknowledged that public health was totally overwhelmed, but felt the county already had the data requested by petitioners because schools are required to report positive cases. The petitioners refer to SPOT – School and Shared Portal for Outbreak Tracking – a system that some entities use to report cases to their local health departments. The petition claims that all schools use the SPOT system.
But it is not clear if all schools actually use the SPOT system, and if they do, it is not clear how the data is compiled.
“The other element concerns the report via SPOT which is mentioned in the petition. And at the moment, we don’t have a consistent reporting structure where all of this data comes to us in a consistent fashion across public health, ”Pereira said on Wednesday.
“When you have 31 school districts and over 70 schools, as you can imagine, it’s quite a challenge: trying to compile that into the requested format,” she said.
“I’m not saying it never is, but at this point, with the resources we have, I can’t commit our staff to undertake this business. “
Pereira said public health is working closely with schools to centralize the process of reporting cases because it is important from an outbreak perspective, but the department does not have the bandwidth to add. information on the dashboard for now.
Public health is also working with schools helping them with the contact tracing protocol, Hoffman said.
“I encourage every family to work with your individual school because they are the ones protecting your children at this time,” he said.
Hoffman said he felt comfortable sending his two children to school in person in Humboldt County.
“I want to stress that I feel safe sending my children to school in our county because I know – I have worked closely with these educators – I know they follow the protocols, they do what that they can to keep them. children safe.
Both noted that they understood the petitioner’s concerns.
“I really want to acknowledge that I think the core of what this petition is asking for. And that means they want their children to be safe, ”Pereira said. “And public health, our schools – we want that too. “
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