Increase in COVID rates at HHS could lead to distance learning

Could HHS students be doing their school work in bed again soon? With COVID numbers being on the rise and a new variant, HHS could be back in remote school soon. 

Minnesota already has amongst the highest COVID rates in the country, and the arrival of the Omicron variant has put Minnesota at the forefront of the virus. The variant, first discovered in South Africa but traced back to Europe, is highly mutated and doctors are unsure about how much the vaccine will do. On Nov. 29 the first case of Omicron was reported in the United States, the person was fully vaccinated and had recently traveled to South Africa. 

As the number of COVID cases in Minnesota rises and a new variant starts spreading more and more, many public schools are reverting back to distance learning, at least temporarily. 

Triton public school district went back to distance learning for two days because their school had a reported higher than five percent of it’s students testing positive for COVID. They are not the only Minnesota school to switch back to online learning. Kare 11 News reported that due to the recent spike in COVID numbers, Burnsville-Eagan-Savage school district also went online Nov. 23- Dec. 3.

According to a Star Tribune article, the Shakopee school district also cancelled all of it’s classes temporarily, hoping for their school’s COVID numbers to drop before returning to in person school. If the numbers continue to climb, HHS could be the next school to return to distance school. 

Olivia Schmerler, junior, is hopeful that HHS will not have to return to online school. Schmerler said that for her and many other students, the online school experience wasn’t ideal for learning and she much prefers in person school.

“Some students didn’t really get to learn that much and had a hard time during distance learning,” Schmerler said.

For students like Schmerler that aren’t interested in returning to remote learning, Christine Niederer, school nurse, has good news. Few COVID cases at HHS have been connected to each other, thanks to contact tracing in which families are emailed when someone in their class tests positive. The few cases that HHS has had have all come from outside of the school, often transmitted from parents. 

“We have 1633 scholars and probably 200 staff and up until a couple of weeks ago, since the start of the year, we’ve only had 20 positive cases which was amazing,” Niederer said. “We all have different feelings about COVID and masks and vaccines, but whatever we’re doing, it’s working.”

Niederer believes that even though HHS is on a good path, if students want to completely avoid going back to remote learning, it’s important that they continue to wear their masks and get vaccinated.