School-reported COVID cases down locally last week

Jeremy P. Kelley, Dayton Daily News, Ohio
·2 min read

Sep. 25—The number of COVID cases reported by local schools last week was significantly lower than either of the two previous weeks, according to Ohio Department of Health data released Thursday.

During the week of Sept. 13-19, local schools reported 677 students newly diagnosed with COVID, down from 911 the previous week, and 1,011 the week before that. The weekly total never surpassed 400 new student cases last school year.

New school employee COVID cases declined very slightly locally, with 113 reported last week, compared to 120 and 119 the two previous weeks.

Statewide, school-reported COVID cases were down slightly from last week's peak. ODH said there were 7,896 newly reported student cases statewide Sept. 13-19 (down from 8,524), and 1,191 new staff cases (down from 1,289).

School-by-school

The Beavercreek and Troy school districts had the highest number of new student COVID cases locally last week, with 46 each reported to ODH. That number was down slightly for Beavercreek and up slightly for Troy.

Fairborn (37), Dayton (34) and Piqua (31) also had fairly high student case reports. Xenia, which had an area-high 60-plus student cases each of the past two weeks, reported only 24 new student cases Sept. 13-19.

Among individual private and charter schools, the highest COVID case tallies last week were at Summit Academy-Xenia and East Dayton Christian, with seven each.

Dayton, Beavercreek and Legacy Christian reported the highest number of new staff COVID cases last week, with eight each.

Data issues

As has often been the case, there were concerns that the numbers released by ODH this week may not be accurate in all cases. For multiple weeks in a row, the ODH data has listed no new cases for multiple Preble County schools, despite some of those districts listing new cases on their own websites.

ODH listed Dayton Public Schools with 150 total student COVID cases from the start of school Aug. 18 through Sept. 19. But at the Sept. 21 school board meeting, DPS director of health services Kellye Jackson told the board that the district had seen 273 student cases since Aug. 18, a discrepancy of 123 cases.