New cases of COVID-19 in Greenwich schools drops into the teens in latest report – Greenwich Time

GREENWICH The number of new cases of COVID-19 in the Greenwich Public Schools dropped back into the teens in the latest report issued Tuesday on the districts online tracker.

And of those COVID-19 cases, 16 cases were considered active, down from the 40 active cases last Friday, according to the tracker.

Seven schools were impacted, with four active cases reported at Riverside; three active cases each at Eastern Middle and Old Greenwich; two active cases each at New Lebanon and North Street; and one active case each at Greenwich High and Western Middle, according to the tracker.

The 16 active cases of COVID-19 were affecting 12 students and four teachers, according to the tracker.

Many local families in the district have been heavily affected by COVID-19, with 380 families reporting 825 cases during the school year, according to the tracker.

The district continues to offer COVID-19 test kits to families if needed, said Jonathan Supranowitz, director of communications and board of education liaison at the Greenwich Public Schools.

The district had small clusters of positive cases, typically with mild symptoms, in a limited number of classes in the past week, Supranowitz said last week.

Coronavirus in Connecticut

Those outbreaks have become common over the past two weeks in our region of Fairfield County, he said.

At the start of March, the district switched to a mask-optional policy in all of its buildings and on school buses. Previously, masks had been required for all students, teachers and other staff since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Since that change in policy, the school district had experienced a small jump in COVID-19 cases.

The 29 new cases of COVID-19 reported March 18 and the 30 reported March 15 were each double the 15 new cases that were reported on the tracker on March 11. On March 7, the local schools reported 10 new cases, which was down from the 11 cases reported each on March 4 and March 1 in the districts twice-a-week updates.

So far in March, the district has reported 124 cases of COVID-19, and 161 cases since students returned from Winter Recess on Feb. 22.

Since classes began Sept. 1, the school district so far has reported 2,227 cases of COVID-19, which is more than triple the 700 total cases reported in the 2020-21 school year.

The number of COVID-19 cases reported in the Greenwich Public Schools increased in late December and then spiked in early January, after starting with single- and double-digit numbers mostly reported in the updates during the first three months of the school year.

In September, the district reported 58 cases of COVID-19, according to the tracker, with 29 cases in October and 65 cases in November. The number of cases began to increase, with 392 cases of COVID-19 reported in December and a spike of 1,422 cases in January before the numbers declined to 137 in February, according to the tracker.

The school district updates the tracker on Tuesdays and Fridays to keep the community informed about the COVID-19 pandemic.

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New cases of COVID-19 in Greenwich schools drops into the teens in latest report - Greenwich Time