A Bay Area town is reeling from a COVID-19 outbreak affecting eight students at a local elementary school following what county officials believed to be a “knowing” breach of COVID-19 policy.
The Marin Independent Journal first reported Friday that a pair of siblings who attend Neil Cummins Elementary School in Corte Madera were told the week of Nov. 8 by a health care provider to stay home after one of the children tested positive for COVID-19. The health care provider also told Marin County public health officials, the Journal reported.
But the parents, Larkspur-Corte Madera School District superintendent Brett Geithman told the Journal and later confirmed to SFGATE, sent both children to school for the entire week, and for most of the following week. The school was closed Nov. 11 for Veterans Day.
School officials were not aware of the positive student until Nov. 18 — almost a week and a half after the initial COVID-19 diagnosis — when Marin County officials alerted them of the case, and asked why the district’s COVID-19 dashboard was not updated.
In the following days, the school tested students from two different classrooms and provided at-home COVID-19 tests to a third classroom, Geithman told SFGATE. All of these students were then forced into “modified quarantine” during Thanksgiving break, as the first cases were reported in these classrooms. While eight children tested positive overall, only three were believed to be in-school transmissions.
Geithman told SFGATE that these were the first in-school transmissions in the district since in-person learning reopened on Oct. 2020.
“It shows that we have strict adherence to our COVID protocols which have proven successful for over 200 days,” Geithman said.
Students attending Larkspur-Corte Madera schools, according to a district website, are required to wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status, as do teachers in classrooms.
Marin County public health officers Drs. Matt Willis and Lisa Santora told the Journal that this was the first instance of a “deliberate” protocol breach in county schools during the pandemic.
In a joint statement provided to SFGATE, Willis and Santora said the family “breached local COVID-19 isolation and quarantine orders.”
“The family did not follow requirements for positive cases and household contacts,” read the statement. The county health officials added that they are “working closely with the affected school to prevent further transmission.”
While some students at the school may have received the first dose dose of the Pfizer vaccine following an emergency use authorization on Oct. 29, none of them were fully vaccinated.
The parents, Geithman told SFGATE, have faced punishment for violating protocol — but assured that the children will not face any punitive action.
“This is a time where we really need to focus on that need to act with integrity, it’s a call to action,” he said.
Earlier this year, another Marin County school was the subject of a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study following a delta variant outbreak in a classroom.