Staff shortages force Greater Clark, other schools to eLearning

Jan. 18—SOUTHERN INDIANA — Greater Clark County Schools will move to district-wide eLearning for the rest of the week as the Omicron surge continues to strain staffing at local schools.

On Tuesday, the district announced it will move to virtual learning Wednesday through Friday because of staffing shortages. In addition to Greater Clark, the spike in cases is having significant effects on classrooms in schools across Southern Indiana.

According to a Tuesday message to parents, Greater Clark's decision "was not made lightly" and is based on the number of staff who are absent or quarantined.

Both Clark and Floyd counties are at the high-risk red warning level for COVID-19 spread, according to the Indiana Department of Health. Clark County Health Officer Dr. Eric Yazel and Floyd County Health Officer Dr. Tom Harris say the entire state will be red once the dashboard updates on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Silver Creek Primary School began a period of eLearning because of staffing shortages. The school is expected to return to in-person learning Jan. 21, and the three other schools in Silver Creek School Corp. are now in-person, according to Silver Creek Superintendent Chad Briggs.

Borden-Henryville School Corp. returned Tuesday to in-person learning after a week of district-wide remote instruction, but on Tuesday, the district announced that Henryville Jr./Sr. High School and Henryville Elementary School will return to eLearning because of staffing shortages. The schools are scheduled to return to in-person learning Monday, Jan. 24. The Borden campus will remain in-person.

The City of Jeffersonville also announced Tuesday that it will return to virtual meetings until further notice because of the high number of COVID-19 cases in the community. This applies to all public meetings with the exception of city council meetings, which will continue to take place in-person. Virtual meetings will take place through Zoom and be streamed live on the city's website.

Yazel said the community is facing a high number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, but based on trends in other communities, he expects the Omicron surge will peak and decline in the next few weeks.

"Hopefully we peak out and drop pretty soon — that would be great for everyone," he said.

Yazel notes that while many schools are facing eLearning because of staffing shortages, they are seeing fewer mass quarantines.

Harris said Floyd County is seeing an "unprecedented number of cases." The county's index is 41% this week based on numbers for the last 7 days.

Although Omicron doesn't seem to be as severe, one of the biggest challenges right now is the combination of increased cases and decreased COVID-19 testing availability, according to Harris.

He said COVID-19 cases likely will peak in the next two to four weeks in the area, saying he is hoping for a "fairly rapid" decline with the Omicron variant.

"It looks like Omicron will give us a few bad weeks, but then it's likely to clear up from there, and then we may really see the whole COVID-19 thing diminish overall," Harris said.

Brian Cox, director of operations and emergency preparedness at Baptist Health Floyd, said the hospital is at or over capacity most days, and as of Tuesday, there were 64 in-patients with COVID-19.

"In general, we run close to capacity even outside of COVID-19 times, and putting COVID on top of that does add to the burden," he said.

About 80% to 85% of those hospitalized for COVID-19 are unvaccinated, he said.

Cox said the monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19 is effective but in extremely short supply at Baptist Health Floyd, and he emphasizes the importance of vaccinations in preventing severe illness from COVID-19.

He encourages people to avoid going to the emergency room just to get tested and to find alternative testing locations.

"Really, one of the biggest things that we're facing right now is just testing the amount of people who want to receive testing, and we try to do things to offset people coming to the ER just to get tested," Cox said. "We're providing testing not only to patients, but for staff who may need to be tested, and we're providing some community testing as need be through urgent care options we have here."

Yazel works in the emergency department of Clark Memorial Health, and he recently has seen a net increase in hospitalizations as cases skyrocket in the community. However, the increase isn't proportional to the number of cases in the community, so even as overall hospitalizations go up, the hospitalization rate is actually a lower percentage of positive cases than the county has seen in the past, he said.

On Monday, there were 48 in-patients with COVID-19 at Clark Memorial Health, and those cases make up the majority of intensive care unit patients, Yazel said. COVID-19 patients in that ICU are also mostly unvaccinated. The hospital system and health care workers are facing the strain, and he is seeing many people waiting in the ER for beds.

"If we were still seeing the same hospitalization rate we had in the past with the amount of community spread we have, we would be in a world of hurt," Yazel said.

It is also challenging when health care workers are quarantined, since hospitals are already struggling to keep up staffing, he said.

For those who are unvaccinated and at high risk, it's "time to really protect yourself," including masking up and minimizing exposure, Yazel said.

He encourages COVID-19 vaccinations and boosters, and he believes the Omicron variant has encouraged some to get their shots. The health department is not "bursting at the seams" in terms of demand for vaccinations, but it is vaccinating people at a "slow but steady" rate, Yazel said.

Harris said the health department is adapting its approach to vaccinations to reach at-risk populations, including nursing home residents. In Floyd County, the vaccination rate is approaching 60%.

"We did a great job initially getting people over 65 vaccinated, but of those, only about 40% have had their booster, and we're trying to get into that population to make sure they get their booster doses," he said. "It's actually been pretty successful."