States such as Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and Indiana have started face to face classes amidst rising cases of coronavirus. Some school districts have had to quarantine hundreds of students after some students tested positive for the virus.
Several states in the US have started face to face classes, undeterred by the raging coronavirus and the rising numbers of new cases. States, which have now become hotspots of new coronavirus cases, have also reopened for in-person classes.
However, rising cases in these schools have already started impacting their ability to continue, with cases of students and teachers being infected with the virus rising. This has led to multiple schools seeing hundreds of their students, teachers, and staff being placed in quarantine.
Face to face classes in Mississipi
The face to face classes, for instance, has not gone smoothly in Mississipi as it had been anticipated. With the state recording record number of new cases and becoming number one with the most cases per capita, reopening of the face to face classes is expected to continue pushing the number of new cases up.
Corinth School District in Mississippi, for instance, has seen hundreds of students from different schools placed in quarantine in the past few days since the schools reopened. At least 8 students have tested positive for the coronavirus since the reopening in the school district. Contact tracing in the district has further identified other students, teachers and staff who had come into contact with the infected students and advised them to quarantine in order to curb the spread of coronavirus.
In an interview with Fox News, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves said that the rising cases and quarantines were in fact success and showed exactly how things were supposed to work. He commended the good job done by his state in being able to trace students who had come into contact with infected students and placing them in isolation.
Reeves said that what people were viewing as negative was in fact a positive aspect in the fight against coronavirus. He said that people who just wanted to attack everyone were the ones spreading misinformation about the state’s handling of face to face classes while emphasizing the state’s ability to track and quarantine those who came into contact with infected students.
Other states reopening
Georgia has also reopened its face to face classes and students advised to return to schools. However, assurances that the schools would follow social distancing and other health advice from the CDC were challenged when students took pictures of the hallways showing students without masks and no social distances. The pictures caused controversies, leading to students being suspended.
Georgia has also seen a spike in new coronavirus cases, with worrying numbers has also highlighted what other states are going through. Republican-led states of Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and Indiana have reopened schools within the past two weeks, a problem many experts say will lead to a rise in the number of new cases.
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