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COVID UPDATE: Back to School

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greeting and thank you so much for joining us today we're very excited to be able to share with you from our perspective where we are in Jasper County School District as we open school and we're so excited about opening School realize that many of you have been following the media we realize that there is a lot of information being shared in our media as well as in the newspapers regarding the cold at night 19 variation as well as the vaccine that is available to support covid-19 we want to come to you to share with you when I say we I'm joined today by dr. Jim Gault I'm medical profession who supports our district free of charge he is a community supporter and he is certainly is vested in our community and in our school district and him being a retired cardiologist truly brings a science and under Andy to the tables when we have conversation about what is best for our district and our children as well as our community who won our teachers and our staff as well as our parents and our constituents to understand that the health of our students our parents are teachers our entire body is very important to us we realize that there is hesitancy that still exists and there are some concerns that my regarding mask-wearing excetera dr. It's going to talk to you in regards to the science regarding where we are at the district and I want to share with you that every decision that we make is going to be the best interests of our children of our staff and of this community we want to partner with you to reassure you that we are doing everything possible and we are being Guided by our Medical Professional whom we very much so and we literally understand that there is so much to understand hence why we are here today to make sure that we're sharing with you and we're being transparent we're being open we want to again reassure you that the opening of school is safe it is safe and their measures that we want to ensure and recommend that we continue to follow we're not going to sit here and say to you that we're mandating anything because we're not but we are going to encourage and we are going to recommend for the safety of all and again... We'll talk in regards to that I want to reassure you that the start of school is very important and that we need all of our Scholars back in our schools from pre-k through 12th grade this past year and a half has been very challenging for all of us but together we made it and we've shown so much resilience I would ask that you join us and listen to again what we have to share with Doctor gout has to share in regards to what we have in place to make sure the a precautionary measures are still sound and that they are certainly going to ensure that we are doing what's best for the safety of all but the key to it is that we must do it together and we be willing to do it together we want to remind you to visit our website at www.sec.gov net we do have an upcoming vaccination event already scheduled we are partnering Coastal Carolina Hospital and we are very excited to save it on next Friday on August 6th 2021 from 10 until 2 p.m. we will be at the heart of the Richmond Middle School gymnasium and we will be administering vaccinations to any student in Jasper County School District that is 12 years of age or older so please do come out and support the cause because together we can beat this and we certainly need your support in order to do that again we're looking for all of our students to report back to school and our faculty and our staff could not be happier to welcome them but we want to do it safely so please ensure can have any questions we will answer them and if you need anything from us we're here to support you now to doctor Galt first of all let me say that we face so unique challenge at this point in the pandemic which has to do with the fact that typical of of any virus there is a tendency for mutations to the and those mutations will sometimes become dominant as the Delta Larry it has done more recently now counting for almost 80% of the infections United States different about the illness now and it's infected in his infectiousness is the fact that it is about 40% more liable to a spread than the previous alphabet rant has a tendency to affect kids to a greater extent So that obviously focuses us on the school issue from the students standpoint the in North Carolina for example for a third of all new infections are the children under 17 and it turns out that they don't get seriously ill but if you combined that number of spreaders potential spread of the virus with the fur that our community vaccination rate is is under 50% then we have a field where a lot of susceptible people who are at risk of higher or more serious illness or going to get sick so weak from a medical standpoint I think we begin with the fact that we're dealing with a complicated issue is complicated a little further by the fact that all the measures that we know have been successful in preventing School infections masking distancing and so forth have been taken off the table by the state legislature and so we will not mandate mask-wearing or any of the other precautionary measures that had previously been in place if you want to look at a measure of success look at how successful we have pins and this is true of school districts across the state employment standard precautionary measures so now measures that were successful and logical we are going to have to trust individual responsibility to see continued so for example if if you are not vaccinated will ask if they undergo weekly to be sure they're virus free do you go to urge mask-wearing and and hope to have enough credibility with our faculty so that they will follow the guidance based on best practices and current information understanding that we take this issue extremely C if we do not we cannot hope to earn your trust to send your children to school so at the moment the measure is that I think ultimately will make us successful include reinstitute edition of our rapid testing program where you will be able to come without an appointment and receive rapid antigen test get a result in 15 minutes and what time does principal is it keeps kids out of school or staff out of school where they might spread the virus the advantage the rapid test is it gives us a result and mediately where we know we can begin contact tracing and contact tracing is the key to keeping other potential spreaders School environment the AR test AR viral protocol will not change if you were ill tested positive for covid you will be retested per protocol in 10 days if you're symptom-free I'm sorry you will be tested send in quarantine for 10 days at the end of that 10 day. If you're symptom-free and have no fever you may return to work without a test now that's that sometimes challenges people but we've because they say well if you're not testing how do you know that person doesn't have the potential to spread the virus it is the position of D hack which we follow mostly out of the CDC that based on experience a positive test after 10 days in a person without symptoms is not indicative of the potential for four spread they do not spread the virus and more than that but we do not want to take the opportunity away from people who need to work to come back to work unless we know that there if there is a potential risk that might apply to someone for example who got vaccinated and yet has a breakthrough infection with this new strain of virus and yet even with that virus that we know that they don't spread even if the test continues to be positive and we've had one instance in the staff world the test has been positive for 4 weeks so we do not make this up as we go our policies were strictly reflect and truly reflect the positions taken week by week DHEC and by the AC DC it's important to point out that in spite of all kinds of opinions out there about different aspects of this pandemic one thing we know for sure and that is that dr. fauci and the authority is on viral epidemiology have been right every step of the way and I think we can be reassured by experience that sticking to the rules is the way we are going to get kids back to school and keep them in school pretty good without it. We that you have said a mouthful and we always again value you know your medical expertise the science behind what you bring to the table and just used in supporting ideas straight through such a difficult time where many of us really and truly we would not know what to do and how to best do that without the support and understanding you know what science actually does Tina Fey is a truly Community project I think it's fair to say that many of us find ourselves and it's getting everybody gather and on the same page. I'm getting the community vaccinate all the pieces fit together and we know the community is working hard to try to solve the vaccination problem that's going to help us so much get the schools absolutely what we need most of all is that shared sense of community to be persuasive and to have people and I'll buy into this by end of the strategy so I think at least at the school district level I'm I'm hoping we will be able to hold informal sessions where those with concerns about the vaccine or concerned about the strategies we use can come get together and share their concerns so we can talk about them. I think that's how we will build and I do agree and we are certainly I mean about to supporting the informal conversations we will certainly look for our covid nurse to certainly support the cause as well as our district meeting to support the cause as well and to afford that opportunity because the health and well-being of our staff and our students is very important to us and it is definitely certainly need it for us to offer School five days a week and to be able to again educate our young people because that is indeed what I know we all want to do and so we are again very appreciative and when I know this will not be our last conversation and we know that we're starting the coding dashboard this coming Friday and so you will be sharing and update each week and so we do invite our community to login to my website and ww.w. kcsd where dr. Will be posting weekly update and information that is invaluable to where we need to be and what's going on here in our district and what we can do to support again the community effort that we have and so we again want to thank God for taking time out of his schedule and again volunteering his time unwillingly to definitely support us and I willingly to support. at it because again with without navigating these Waters may seem easy but it certainly is not and so we appreciate the support of our community with the pre appreciate the support of our parents and our staff members into our faculty and staff we will be sending out protocols so that you do understand exactly all that. God has said and what we are doing here in our very own system to make sure that as he said we're not mandate but we are encouraging us to follow the protocols that we do know are going to support again the safety and the health and well-being of all thank you so much for your time today I'll be back soon to share with you as time continues

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COVID UPDATE: Back to School

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