Clear Creek ISD and Galveston County leaders encouraged the community to get vaccinated and remain united in the fight against COVID-19 during a virtual information session Sept. 9.
The district hosted the session with Superintendent Eric Williams and Galveston County Local Health Authority Philip Keiser. The two answered questions from CCISD chief communications officer Elaina Polsen about area coronavirus trends, how district staff and families can slow the spread of the virus and what CCISD is doing to move toward pre-pandemic educational practices.
The county is hitting a plateau in cases amid a third virus surge, Keiser said during the information session. CCISD is the county’s largest district, he said.
“We’re in the middle of our third surge, and it’s actually been the highest number of COVID[-19] cases we've ever seen,” he said. “If anything, over the past couple weeks, they’ve been decreasing a little bit. I’m cautiously optimistic that this week we’ll see even less.”
The information session happened several hours before the county reported its first-ever COVID-19 death in a resident under the age of 11.
The girl, age range 0-10 years, died Sept. 7, Galveston County Health District reported around 4 p.m. Sept. 9. Her death, which is the youngest COVID-19 death GCHD has reported to date, will be recorded on the health district’s COVID-19 dashboard with the Sept. 10 case update.
While the girl attended school in Galveston County, the health district does not believe she contracted COVID-19 from school.
Communities must continue to work together in and out of classrooms to be able to return to pre-pandemic conditions, Keiser and Williams said. Keiser meets with Williams and other county superintendents periodically, and they discuss communitywide data and how the cases at local ISDs fit into that data.
Williams told the community that the importance of masking, staying home when sick and frequent hand washing have been constant pieces of advice from Keiser.
While Keiser said masks are not perfect, he said they decrease the risk of contracting and transmitting COVID-19. In a classroom where children are together for hours each day, using them is the best way to prevent virus spread, he said.
Both agreed in-person learning was the goal for 2021-22. Keiser said closing classrooms or schools for outbreaks is a last-resort measure.
“My aspiration is that we maximize that in-person learning and do that in a safe way,” Williams said during the information session.
Per state health department regulations, students and staff will be sent home if they have COVID-19 symptoms unless the symptoms can be connected to an existing medical condition. Texas Education Agency guidance around COVID-19-related exclusion from school has shifted in an effort to be responsive to the latest data, Williams said.
Parents have to keep their children home if they are a close contact of a COVID-19-positive household member, and in this case the student must remain home for a full 10 days. Close contacts from outside the home can return to school after five days with proof of a negative PCR test, but TEA information suggests there is a greater risk of virus spread with household-based close contacts, so those students must wait longer to return, Williams said.
“We’re seeing most transmission actually occurring at home,” Keiser said during the information session, adding it takes about five days after one household member gets COVID-19 for every other member to also contract the virus. “If everyone is vaccinated in the home, even if you have schoolchildren that are of an age that cannot be vaccinated, you’re going to decrease the likelihood that those kids become infected.”
He anticipates approval of the vaccine for use on children under the age of 12 will happen sometime this month. Aside from remaining home when sick and using face coverings, Keiser said getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is essential in combating virus spread.
CCISD is partnering with Houston Methodist Hospital to offer mobile vaccine clinics at each of the 16 intermediate and high school campuses. The clinics started Sept. 8 and will continue over the next couple weeks, Williams said. Parents must give permission for students to be vaccinated, and parents may accompany their children to the vaccine appointment, he said.
“We know more about this vaccine than any vaccine in history, and it is one of the safest vaccines in history,” Keiser said during the information session. "Don’t believe it when people tell you it’s going to cause long-term problems—it’s not.”
A contentious presidential election contributed to the creation of an atmosphere where people are arguing about how to best move forward in regard to the pandemic, Keiser said. He encouraged residents to put conflicts aside and get vaccinated.
“The virus is not political. The virus did not read the Constitution,” he said. “It’s not us against each other, it’s us against the virus, and I think if we stand together, we can beat it.”
