Vaccine Update
Have been stable with secondary numbers, and have stabilized from the last update.
Vaccine clinics continue at various school sites offering first and second dose vaccines to students, staff and their families as a way to create greater access to the vaccine for community members. Preliminary numbers indicate approximately 20% of elementary students have started the vaccination process. In the school-site vaccine clinics for 5-11 year olds in February, we had the following participation rates:
Florida Mesa - 25
Park Elementary - 38
Riverview - 35
Juniper - 16
Sunnyside - 5
Needham - 41
Animas Valley - 13
Fort Lewis Mesa - 6
Serial Testing
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s (CDPHE) serial testing has begun as a pilot program in three (3) 9-R schools: Park Elementary, Escalante Middle School and Durango High School. School nurses and health service providers are supporting the efforts to offer the serial testing with the incentive from the CDPHE. The testing began the first week of November, from which two positive cases of asymptomatic students were identified. Enrollment in the program includes 352 students as of Tuesday, November 30, 2021, and schools have administered a total of 755 tests. Students who participate in the program receive an initial incentive from CDPHE of $25, and then $10 for every subsequent test. We are extending the weekly testing program to all schools over the coming weeks. Please watch for additional details about the availability of this program at your child’s school.
Symptomatic Testing in Schools
To date, 1553 tests of the rapid CUE or Binax tests have been conducted across all school sites for 9-R since the beginning of the school year. We have found 86 positives through these rapid tests. The percent positive goal is less than 5%, and we are currently at 5.54%. This is a statistical number that indicates enough testing to measure whether or not we are doing enough testing to capture all the cases in our community, and in this case, our district.
Case Count for November
As anticipated, there is an increase in the number of cases as the year goes on and we had these shifts last year as well when weather began to change and more activities are inside, with our total number of cases in November at 102. There are two reported outbreaks being investigated by San Juan Basin Public Health, one at DHS and one at EMS.