Elkhart County Health Department began in 1949. Today the department consists of approximately 100 employees working in five divisions.
Hey, so I'd like to ask y'all a quick favor. I am honestly super worried about my mom - she's going back to school this fall to teach, and her school district refuses to do virtual learning (they're doing some hybrid alternate-day schedule, which reduces the risk of kids giving it to each other, but teachers still have to report to work every day so they're gonna become the vectors of transmission for COVID).
The schools are getting their guidance from the county health department on how to reopen. The county health dept ruled Friday that it's safe for schools to reopen. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. My mom lives in a COVID hotspot and people are dying all around her. She's in her mid-50s and has multiple underlying health conditions. If she gets it, she will likely die.
PLEASE reblog this!!!! And if you have a little energy to spare, click the above link, which takes you to a page where you can message the county health department! All you have to do is put your name and email, and in the dropdown under "Select Department" select "Administration - Health Officer, Board of Health, Fiscal, Personnel". This will send a message to the health officer! And in the message field, you can copy and paste the below:
Hello! I am writing to ask that you recommend virtual learning for all schools in Elkhart County without exemption, and overturn your executive order to have schools in the county reopen safely.
In your recommendation, you said you consulted with the Indiana State Department of Health about the positivity rates of infection within Elkhart County, and determined that schools in communities with higher positivity rates were able to successfully reopen. However, I believe it is too soon to know what a "successful reopening" during a pandemic is. Is it that NO students contract COVID during the course of the entire school year? Is it that no student DIES from COVID? The criteria for a successful reopening is unclear and too soon to determine based on the start dates of schools in the state of Indiana.
In your recommendation, you also said that the Indiana State Health Commissioner, Dr. Kris Box, says that Elkhart schools have strong reopening plans. However, the reopening plans in even neighboring counties differ vastly from those of Elkhart County. In St. Joseph County, with a much higher population than that of Elkhart County, South Bend schools as well as Mishawaka schools have decided on a 100% virtual education plan. I feel that the Indiana State Health Commissioner did not do her due diligence to recommend a more consistent plan of reopening across all Indiana schools, especially considering that Elkhart is a COVID hotspot.
The amount of testing Elkhart County has performed has gone WAY down over the last few weeks, yet over the last week positive cases are up 5.6% since the prior week, and deaths are up 10.5% since the prior week. This indicates to me that the positivity rate for Elkhart is not going down, but is in fact going up. Elkhart County is among the worst in the state for per capita rates of COVID-19, and the chances of there being a COVID-positive person in a room of 10 people in Elkhart County is 24%. These are HORRIFIC odds when we consider that classrooms will be filled this fall with that many students, if not more.
Your original recommendation to schools needlessly jeopardizes the lives of both students and staff, as well as their family members. Please recommend to Elkhart County schools that virtual learning be the sole option for education until it is safe to resume in-person classes.
PLEASE reblog this so that we can fill up the Elkhart County Health Department inbox with our voices of dissent!!! What Dr. Lydia Mertz has decided is NOT in the students' or staff's best interests, let alone that of the community, and we need to make that known!
For those who have Facebook, you can share my Facebook post on this: https://www.facebook.com/thegabster/posts/10223847418914780
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