Schools set to surpass last year’s COVID-19 cases in first three weeks of this school year – Sarasota Herald-Tribune

There have been more cases of students and staff catching COVID-19 during the first threeweeks of school this year than all of last school year inManatee County, and Sarasota County is not far behind.

As of Thursday, Manatee was reporting 1,156 positive cases among students and 200 among staff. Last year, the school district had 1,119 total cases among students and staff for the entire year.

In Sarasota, the district's COVID-19 numbers have been growing at an unprecedented rate.

As of Thursday, the district was reporting that 1,436 students and 232staff members have tested positive since July 1, for a total of 1,668 cases in just 13 days of school. (Some of those cases were over the summer, but the vast majority have been reported since school began Aug. 10.)

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Last year, Sarasota had2,266 cases for the entire year, a number the district will likely surpass in the coming days if it keeps up the current pace.

The highest number of new cases Sarasota had in one week last year was 322, the week after Winter Break. This year, the district has beenaveraging roughly 128 new cases per day.

While the numbers are climbing steadily, at this point the vast majority of students are in school and not getting sick.

Manatee's total student cases amount to 2% of the total student enrollment. Sarasota's total student cases amounts to roughly 3% of enrollment.

On Tuesday, the Manatee County School Board voted to extend its optional mask mandate. Students in Manatee are required to wear masks unless their parents turn in an opt-out form, and the policy will be suspended if the seven-day positivity rate falls to 8%.

According to district spokesman Mike Barber, 5,336 students in traditional schoolshave turned in opt-out forms (charter schools keep their own numbers). That means roughly 15% of students in Manatee'straditional K-12 schoolshave opted out and 85% are expected to wear masks.

Administrators in both districts have said that makingmasks "mandatory" with an opportunity to opt out was no different than the existing mask-optional policy that Sarasota and Manatee began the year with.

While 85% of the district has, in theory, agreed to wear a mask in Manatee, there is no penalty if a student does not have an opt-out but still does not wear a mask.

Manatee School Board member Mary Foreman said that the lack of enforcement makes the policy far less effective.

"I am hearing from family members in the community that there may be three kids in a class of 20 that are wearing a mask...Obviously we arenot enforcing it," Foreman said.

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"We can only hold the superintendent accountable, but she needs to hold the schools and the principals accountable," she said.

Board Chairman Charlie Kennedy said to give the new policy time, and that as the case numbers rise kids will begin to see the importance of masking up so that events like homecoming or school plays don't get canceled.

"It is going to take some time," Kennedy said. "Anecdotally I'm hearing that (mask-wearing) is definitely higher now than it was the first week of school."

The Sarasota County School District is rolling out a mask-mandatory policy this week, with plans to begin enforcing mandatory masking at schools on Monday.

School officials have been developing rules for enforcement this week that wereexpected to go out to families Thursday evening, district spokesman Craig Maniglia said.

Sarasota's mask policy will remain in effect for the next 90 days, but it could be suspended earlier if the single-day positivity rate falls below 8% for three consecutive days.

The district has added a positivity rate tracker to its website. As of Thursday morning, the single-day positivity rate for the past three days had been 15.9% on Monday, 16% on Tuesday and 14.74% on Wednesday.

Ryan McKinnon covers schools for the Herald-Tribune. Connect with him at ryan.mckinnon@heraldtribune.com or on Twitter: @JRMcKinnon. Support the Sarasota Herald-Tribune by subscribing today.

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Schools set to surpass last year's COVID-19 cases in first three weeks of this school year - Sarasota Herald-Tribune