State Reports 48 New COVID-19 Outbreaks In Schools In The Last Week

Laina G. Stebbins

May 10

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) reports that 122 pre-kindergarten-12 schools are reporting new or ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks as of Monday.

Of those, 48 K-12 schools in 14 counties are experiencing new outbreaks or clusters as of Monday that total 287 COVID-19 cases.

The state reports school- and sports-related COVID-19 outbreaks on a weekly basis.

There are 29 pre-kindergarten-12 schools with ongoing outbreaks of 10 cases or more, including Croswell Lexington High School (110 cases), Croswell Lexington junior high/middle school (93 cases), Brown City Community High School (70 cases), Croswell Lexington preschool-elementary school (64 cases) and Interlochen Arts Academy (63 cases).

There are some holes in the state’s reporting of school-related outbreaks, as DHHS doesn’t track individual COVID-19 cases in schools and relies on local health departments to track and report.

To be considered an outbreak, the local health department must have found three or more COVID-19 cases that may have shared exposure on school grounds and are from different households. Previously, the state considered an outbreak to be two or more COVID-19 cases.

Case counts for school-related outbreaks include those associated with before and after school programs and cases originating from on-campus and off-campus student housing.

The state stopped reporting COVID-19 outbreaks in colleges and universities to “streamline the local health department weekly outbreak reporting survey to focus on congregate settings where patients and staff might be more at risk for infection and/or experience severe outcomes from infection” during the current surge in cases.

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