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Washington County in the "Red Zone." Now What?

As I expected, Washington County moved into the "red zone" for school openings yesterday. But what does that mean? If it stays this way, will schools go to only remote? Not necessarily... Johnson City Schools has issued an FAQ which addresses this specifically. 

From the FAQ: 

Going into “red” or substantial (defined as an average of > 11+new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 Washington County residents over the last 14 days) will not automatically mean that schools shutdown and every student will become a remote learner.

Local health departments, school officials, city and county leaders cannot focus only on the number of cases and the case rate alone, but should also consider characteristics across four factors to fully determine community risk. These factors include:

- Disease epidemiology: Level of community transmission, number and type of outbreaks, impact of the outbreaks on delivery of healthcare or other critical infrastructure or services, and epidemiology in surrounding jurisdictions

- Community characteristics: Size of community and population density, level of community engagement/support, size and characteristics of vulnerable populations, access to healthcare, transportation, planned large events, and relationship of community to other communities

- Local healthcare capacity: Healthcare workforce, number of healthcare facilities, testing capacity, hospital intensive care unit capacity, and availability of personal protective equipment

- Public health capacity: Public health workforce and availability of resources to implement strategies, and available support from other state/local government agencies and partner organizations

What does that really mean? Who knows?  The FAQ goes on to say the school system will decide weekly and notify the public so as to avoid changes during the school week. Here's yesterday's data, which will somehow influence their decision: 

New Cases Per Day, including 14-day average per 100,000 county residents




Northeast TN Active Cases



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