Covid-19 cases are continuing to spread in the United States, with a Texas school district being forced to cancel classes last week and highlighting how the virus is still disrupting learning, six years after the pandemic first upended education countrywide, reports Newsweek.
San Perlita Independent School District in south Texas is the latest to announce the temporary closure of all campuses, saying the shutdown was aimed at helping “to protect the health and safety” of the school community while helping to prevent further spread.
The closure comes just days after another school – in Louisiana – was forced to take similar action, and temporarily shut down for one day “out of an abundance of caution” after a Covid outbreak that affected students and staff.
The school disruptions coincide with a broader increase in infections across much of the country.
According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) epidemic trend estimates, as of 19 August, infections are currently growing in 47 states, while no states were seeing a decrease in cases.
The agency has described national Covid activity as low overall but trending upward.
Growing wastewater surveillance data appears to support the trend. In Texas, the CDC has reported rising levels of SARS‑CoV‑2 in wastewater samples in several regions.
Wastewater monitoring is often considered an early indicator of community spread because increases can appear before spikes in testing or hospital visits.
Experts caution that rising case counts do not necessarily mean a return to the large-scale disruptions seen during the height of the pandemic. They said it has settled into a pattern of recurring seasonal waves, with increases often occurring during the summer and winter months.
Newsweek article – Map Shows ‘Rapid Spread’ of Covid Cases as School Classes Cancelled (Open access)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Covid-19 pandemic is the deadliest event in US history
A divided US faces a pandemic entering its deadliest phase
Evidence shows that lockdown was a ‘reckless’ experiment
University of Bologna genome analysis: The six strains of SARS-CoV-2