Last week, Ponca City Public Schools had 3 in-school contact traces. This includes 2 at East Middle School and 1 at West Middle School. East Middle School has seen an increase in cases the last 2 weeks, but the majority of those affected by COVID-19 are returning to school this week.
On Monday morning, EMS and Liberty Elementary will have just over 5% of students out due to being in isolation or quarantine. However, there were no contact traces at Liberty. The students out were close contacts of adult household positives.
The Kay County Risk Level went up last week as it went from 37.4 to 40.7, putting the county in the Orange 2 color coded risk level. Kay County had the 5th highest risk level of all 77 counties in Oklahoma. Fortunately, PCPS trends continue to show a decrease in close contacts. PCPS says thank you for keeping students at home if they’re symptomatic or waiting on test results.
PCPS is hearing from the Oklahoma State Department of Health that the Pfizer vaccine may be available to Oklahoma children, age 5-11, this week. The vaccine is NOT a required vaccine for school-aged children. Based on the contact tracing and if parents tell PCPS that their child was vaccinated, percentages of vaccinated students, 12-18 years of age, continues to grow.
PCPS has added the Site Percentages Out Due to Isolation or Quarantine Chart, in addition to the Contact Tracing Totals Spreadsheet on the homepage at www.pcps.us. Charts will be updated each school day at 4 p.m. The Kay County COVID-19 Risk Alert may be accessed each Wednesday from the OSDH website: https://oklahoma.gov/covid19/covid-19-alert-system.html.
