The Washington-Ozaukee Health Director says there are students being sent to school even after they have tested positive for COVID-19. Kirsten Johnson told the Ozaukee County Health and Human Services Committee this has happened more than once during a meeting Tuesday.
Johnson said “we’ve had positive kids, known positive kids who have gone to school which has increased the spread.” She said in one case two students that were positive ended up forcing three classrooms of students to quarantine.
That hasn’t been easy, either. Johnson says “there is a lot of push back from parents who have quarantined kids who have been exposed so they are sending them back to school.”
When a known case is discovered and the school starts contact tracing, Johnson says they haven’t been given accurate information.
“We also have parents who are being dishonest about who lives in the household, so that those kids aren’t quarantined. If they don’t name them we don’t know about them,” says Johnson.
The COVID-19 dashboard for Washington-Ozaukee Counties shows 26 different schools where active investigations are underway. Those are schools where this one or more known case of COVID-19 that has caused a quarantine.
Johnson didn’t give specifics on what schools this was happening in. The combined counties encompass several different school districts.