HANCOCK COUNTY — Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation is requiring masks and suspending its COVID-19 protocols in light of new flexibility allowed by the state.
The changes come as Hancock County crosses the 10,000-case threshold since the novel coronavirus pandemic began a year and a half ago.
Gov. Eric Holcomb’s executive order on Sept. 1 allows schools in which masks are worn to avoid requiring close contacts to quarantine in many situations. Close contacts to someone with COVID-19 will still be traced and notified, but they may remain in school and extracurricular activities as long as they don’t develop symptoms of the novel coronavirus.
During lunch and in other circumstances in which masks can’t be worn, close contacts will still have to quarantine if they were within 6 feet of a COVID-positive individual for 15 minutes in a 24-hour period.
Mt. Vernon is taking advantage of the new flexibility by requiring masks in all schools. Four out of its five buildings were already requiring masks, prompted by the school corporation’s tiered health and safety protocol. That system was suspended, as the latest flexibility makes it unnecessary.
“The Mt. Vernon Community School Corporation will use every law, guidance, and opportunity to keep our students in school and limit the number of days they are absent due to a quarantine,” Mt. Vernon said in an email to families.
The school corporation’s cumulative total of close contacts is 1,400 since the start of the school year, an average of more than 50 a day.
“We are excited to have received this new flexibility, and we believe that our numbers of quarantines will decrease to an extremely small number in the very near future,” Mt. Vernon said.
Starting Tuesday, Sept. 7, the school corporation will retroactively allow those in quarantine to return to in-person learning if the location of the close contact was one in which masks were worn. Mt. Vernon said it’s reviewing all quarantines with plans to notify parents of possible returns to in-person learning.
The corporation will continue providing weekly updates on COVID-19 figures per building on its website.
As of Friday afternoon, the website reported four current cases at Mt. Comfort Elementary School, five at McCordsville Elementary School, four at Fortville Elementary School, one at Mt. Vernon Middle School and 17 at Mt. Vernon High School.
Greenfield-Central and Eastern Hancock said earlier this week that the executive order isn’t prompting any immediate changes in their school districts. Southern Hancock had already been requiring masks in all its schools.
Hancock County added 64 new known COVID-19 cases Friday, putting its total right at 10,000. The county’s seven-day moving average of positive cases continues its upward trend, rising to 52 on Friday. Also continuing an upward trend is Indiana’s statewide COVID-19 hospital census, which was at 2,443, about 1,000 fewer than its peak in late November 2020.
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COVID-19 data as of early Friday, Sept. 3
Hancock County
- 608 new tests administered (Aug. 25-Sept. 2)
- 64 new cases (Sept. 2)
- 9.3% seven-day (Aug. 21-27) positivity rate all tests, 8.7% cumulative rate
- 0 new deaths
- 134,400 total tests administered
- 10,000 total cases
- 13.3% seven-day (Aug. 21-27) positivity rate unique individuals, 19.6% cumulative rate
- 154 total deaths
- 40,851 age 12+ fully vaccinated (61.4% of that population)
Indiana
- 53,695 new tests administered (April 20, 2020-Sept. 2, 2021), 14,173 new individuals tested
- 5,079 new cases (Sept. 2)
- 11.5% seven-day (Aug. 21-27) positivity rate all tests, 8.6% cumulative rate
- 20 new deaths (Aug. 27-Sept. 2)
- 12,450,587 total tests administered, 3,960,242 total individuals tested
- 873,480 total cases
- 19.2% seven-day (Aug. 21-27) positivity rate unique individuals, 22.1% cumulative rate
- 14,121 total deaths
- 449 total probable deaths
- 51.7% ICU beds in use – non-COVID
- 28.4% ICU beds in use – COVID
- 19.8% ICU beds available
- 18.8% ventilators in use – non-COVID
- 11.4% ventilators in use – COVID
- 69.8% ventilators available
- Hospital census: 2,443 total COVID-19 patients (2,123 confirmed, 320 under investigation)
- Delta variant: 98.4% of samples in current month
- Not variant of concern: 1.1% of samples in current month
- Alpha variant: 0.2% of samples in current month
- Gamma variant: 0.2% of samples in current month
- 105 total confirmed cases of multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children
- 3,119,002 age 12+ fully vaccinated (53.2% of that population)
- 18,042 breakthrough cases (0.58% of fully vaccinated individuals)
- 397 breakthrough hospitalizations (0.013% of fully vaccinated individuals)
- 115 breakthrough deaths (0.004% of fully vaccinated individuals)
Source: Indiana Department of Health
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