About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 25, 2020)
LOCAL The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com Tuesday, August 25, 2020 3A HALLSCH00LS ■ Continued from 1A scon ROGERS I The Times Wauka Mountain Multiple Intelligences Academy students get their temperatures checked Monday, Aug. 24, as they arrive on the first day of school for Hall County Schools. Jonathan Edwards, principal of Johnson High School, had much the same to say, adding that the small num ber of students who arrived without masks were given one immediately. Edwards said his staff has pri oritized teaching the school’s imple mented safety protocols to students, taking a “slow and deliberate” approach and providing regular intercom announcements to remind students of the importance of social distancing and mask wearing. He said the district’s hybrid reopening plan has been instrumental in making the teaching of precautionary procedures as easy and effective as possible. “With that reduced amount of stu dents in the building, it allows us to be able to give more attention and to evaluate more thoroughly what’s going on in the hallway and be able to instruct those kids,” Edwards said. “Our teachers are able to have that smaller, closer group, so those conversations are a lot stronger in terms of communicating what those safety measures are. And they’re able to check in and ask for stu dents’ understanding, to check their understanding on it, rather than sometimes if you have that large group, some things may get missed or things like that.” Marianne Durieux, an ESOL teacher at Martin Technology Acad emy of Math and Science, said even Hall County’s youngest students have adapted well to new safety pro cedures. Teachers have had access to age-appropriate instructional vid eos on handwashing and have been advising students to walk through hallways with “Frankenstein arms” out in front of them to ensure there is space between students. Durieux said early in the day she was most concerned about cafete- Related ■ Nationwide Zoom outage affects the first day of school for local students, 4A ■ Hall Schools enables web tracker that displays absences due to positive COVID-19 tests, 4A ria traffic, but her initial experience with lunch time was a positive one. “I was in there this morning when kindergarten was in there, and it really ran smoothly,” she said. “I think it really helps we were at half capacity in our building, so there’s less bodies. But it really, really ran smoothly. I do think having mark ers that are 6 feet apart on the floor really kind of helped with that.” She added that the extra week of pre-planning provided by the district this year and the hybrid reopening cutting down on the num ber of students in school buildings, have been instrumental in making the first day back a success. Parents of Hall County students say they have also been encouraged by Monday’s start to the school year. Marsha Black, who has a daugh ter attending East Hall High School, wrote via email that she was impressed by the traffic directing and mask wearing of school employ ees at the morning drop-off today. “They were all wearing masks and taking each child’s tempera ture,” she wrote. “I was very pleased and felt very safe for my daughter to be back in school.” Diana Osorio Blankenship, a mother of five from Flowery Branch, has two children returning to school for in-person instruction today and three at home, who will be going back tomorrow. She said she was initially disap pointed that her kids would have to alternate in-person school days for the first two weeks of school but has come to accept the necessity of giving schools the extra space for preparation. Osorio Blankenship said she is confident in the school district’s return plan and is not overly con cerned about her children getting back into the classroom. “Things are up here in Hall County,” she said. “I’ve got boys in football and karate, and swim practice is about to take off. If they can do all those activi ties, we’re good for school.” NGHS ■ Continued from 1A especially after July Fourth and that long weekend,” she said on a Zoom call Monday, Aug. 24 with the Greater Hall Chamber of Commerce. NGHS saw an increase in COVID-19 patients following the Fourth of July. On July 4, the system was treating 73 COVID-19 patients. On July 18, that number was 114, and two weeks after that on Aug. 1, the system was treating 171 patients with the virus. The system’s case positivity rate, the percentage of COVID- 19 tests coming back positive, also peaked about two weeks after the holiday weekend. On July 16, the system had a 28.65% positivity rate for the previous week. “That’s what I’m really wor ried about, as we get after Labor Day weekend, we really are concerned about having a similar spike to that,” said Dr. John Delzell, vice president for graduate medical educa tion and incident commander at the health system. “With the schools opening back up, the colleges opening back up, and people just traveling in for the holidays, that’s what we’re really going to watch. Over the next couple of weeks, that could lead to more people in the hospital.” Mannepalli said the case positivity rate is a key indica tor of the virus’ spread in the community. “Even before we see that number of hospitalizations increase, an increase in the positivity rate kind of is an indi cator of what is to come,” she said. “The lower the positivity rate, the better. The positiv ity rate is also an indicator of are we doing enough testing or not.” On Monday, Aug. 24, NGHS had a seven-day positivity rate of 15.06%. The state’s rate is 10.2%. The World Health Orga nization recommends that case positivity rates should remain at 5% or lower for at least 14 days before an area reopens. NGHS was treating 121 patients with the virus on Mon day, Aug. 24. As of Monday, the system had discharged 1,894 COVID-19 patients and 240 had died since the beginning of the pandemic. Mannepalli said most COVID-19 patients at NGMC are treated with remdesivir, with steroids and plasma as additional options. The system has about a one to two-month supply of remdesivir, and health care providers have found it is best to start patients on remdesivir early, she said. She also said while wearing a face shield can protect the wearer because the virus could enter the body through the eyes, masks should still be worn in additional to a face shield to cover the nose and mouth. The hospital is also prepar ing for flu season and encourag ing people to get a flu shot. “I know there are some skeptics out there about the flu vaccine, but it is still the best prevention that we have to prevent flu,” Mannepalli said. “I receive the question every time, the strain of flu is differ ent from the one in the vaccine. ... Even if the strain is different, the flu vaccine will prevent or reduce hospitalizations.” BRENAU ■ Continued from 1A On Monday she took her first course of the semester on campus. Compared to the beginning of her freshman year, Rangel said starting classes during the pandemic “wasn’t too difficult.” Students, faculty and staff are now required to undergo a daily screening checklist before entering their respective classes and workplaces. The form includes six questions, one of which prompts people to check their temperature to certify it’s less than 100.3 degrees. Rangel said her professor checked to make sure all her students finished the survey before coming into class Monday morning. “So far, so good,” Rangel said. “With the whole situa tion, everybody is wearing face masks and we’re sitting separately. I feel good.” Jessi Barker Shrout, chair of Brenau’s math and sci ence department, said all the university professors are conducting a combination of in-person, remote and hybrid courses. She said all classes that take place on campus are filmed, giving students the option to either tune into their classes online or physically attend. Shrout said the online classes are asynchronous where students work on their own schedule. Entering her 13th year teaching at Brenau, Shrout described the fall semester as “a new experience.” “We’ve had a lot of good prep work over the sum mer,” she said. “We’ve had time to prepare. We’re being flexible knowing that changes might happen and we’re just trying to be good with that. Our students are really understanding, so it helps.” For more information on Brenau’s fall 2020 semester new COVID-19 protocols, visit gainesvilletimes.com/news/education/ whats-in-store-for-brenaus-fall-2020-semester/. SCOTT ROGERS I The Times Brenau University’s Stephanie Rangel walks across campus Monday, Aug. 24, during the first day of classes for the Fall semester. 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