Schools Are Safe, Community Must Do Its Part: Health Director

EAST HAVEN, CT — Not unlike most Connecticut cities and towns, COVID-19 cases are rising dramatically in East Haven. As of last week, the positive case rate in East Haven is 10.5 percent, according to state data.

In just the last two weeks, close to 400 new cases were reported in town. These numbers do not include congregate care facilities like nursing homes. As cases in the community are rising, so too are cases in schools.

As of Tuesday, East Haven schools report there have been 175 cases. Since Monday, there were four new cases reported with 113 in quarantine.

But East Shore District Health director Michael Pascucilla says there's no evidence of in-school transmission after vigilant contact tracking investigations show, he said. So while there’s a spike in schools’ cases, the cases are coming from the community, not the schools, Pascucilla maintains. He says cases are coming into the schools from community social gatherings.

“The reason why the positivity rate is going up is simply that the community is not doing their part,” he said. “More people are getting ill because they are not following the rules. It’s not coming from the schools. It’s coming from people gathering for dinners, home parties, people still going out to visit relatives in other towns,” for example, he said. “Every time you go out of your home you’re risking potential exposure. People must comply if we’re going to stop the spread.”

Pascucilla says that the schools are still the safest place to be and more importantly, he said, closing schools leaves many kids vulnerable.

Indeed, a study by the Journal of the American Medical Association published Tuesdayshows that as long as schools are committed to mask-wearing, social distancing and cleaning protocols, they are safe. And likely safer than their communities.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that based upon data from the fall school semester shows there's "...little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission,"provided there are spread mitigation efforts in place in schools. Pascucilla says those measures are in place in East Haven schools and are working. Now, he said, the community needs to step up. And the JAMA study shows that it does not matter how well schools do unless communities too are on board.

"Committing today to policies that prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission in communities and in schools will help ensure the future social and academic welfare of all students and their education," researchers wrote.

Pascucilla agrees.

“From a public health perspective,” he noted, “as long as schools' positivity rates are far below the community, we’re OK. If that rate were to exceed what's happening in the community, that’d be a major problem. But that’s not what’s happening. Yes, we had classes and teachers and sports cases, but I am not seeing that spread from inside the schools.”

Pascucilla says that if schools close, the ramifications for many kids will be “a real worry.”

He said some students and families are already having a tough time doing school remotely, and his concern is about the short- and long-term negative effects of kids being home.

“Their physical health, depression, anxiety, in some homes there’s domestic violence, increased substance abuse is being seen and even suicides. Students are hurting,” he said in an interview with Patch.

“They’re already missing after-school activities, going to movies, being with friends, doing sports. Our suicide rates, depression and anxiety is going through the roof. If we were to close our schools, in my opinion, it would make it worse for kids. We feel as long as it's safe in school, which it is, since we’ve had to take away everything else, kids need to be in school,” he said. “It’s all they have.”

Pascucilla says that since families have the option to keep kids home, parents can make the decision for what’s best for their kids.

“Some say close the school but people have a choice,” he said.

This article originally appeared on the East Haven Patch