Several cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the Watertown Public Schools community, and Superintendent Dede Galdston said officials are planning how to handle the return from winter vacation.
Details of what the plan is for the return to school have not been announced, but part of the Watertown School’s response will be a vaccination clinic in early January, according to a letter sent out by Galdston and Director of Student Services Kathleen Desmarais on Dec. 29.
“We believe that there is community transmission at this time, so we are currently considering options to maximize testing and safety upon our return after the break,” the letter reads.
Statewide, the Mass. Department of Public Health reported 15,163 new confirmed cases on Dec. 29. The positive test rate over the previous seven days was 13.58 percent. The state also reported 1,711 hospitalizations due to COVID, and 45 newly reported COVID deaths and the average age of was 75.
The number of cases in Watertown went from 195 confirmed cases over the two weeks between Dec. 5 and 18 (released on Dec. 23), and the number rose to 324 for the period of Dec. 12 to 25 (released on Dec. 30). The positive test rate went from 3.56 percent in the Dec. 23 report to 6.16 percent in the Dec. 30 report. The case rate in Watertown went from 42.2 cases per 100,000 residents in the Dec. 23 report to 70.1 per 100,000 in the Dec. 30 report.
A vaccination clinic is planned for students ages 5 to 11, where students over 16 can get a booster shot. The clinic will be held on Tuesday, Jan. 11, from 3:30-7:00 p.m. at the Watertown Middle School. Participants must sign-ups in advance — click here to register.
See the letter sent out by the Watertown Schools below:
Dear Watertown Public Schools community member,
Over the holiday weekend and today, we were informed of several additional positive cases of COVID within our school community. In some cases, the positive individual was present in school within 48 hours of developing symptoms, and close contacts were identified and notified directly in these instances. We believe that there is community transmission at this time, so we are currently considering options to maximize testing and safety upon our return after the break.
We understand that cases are rising throughout the Watertown community at large due to the more contagious Omicron variant, and encourage you to maintain social distancing as much as feasible, and to wear masks when indoors per the Watertown Health Department to stay as safe as possible. If you are looking for testing options over the break, please check here. With New Year’s Eve on Friday, we encourage you to consider minimizing risk by avoiding large crowds or gatherings in order to reduce the number of cases upon our return to school.
Please reach out to me this week to report a positive case or if you have any school-related COVID questions (your nurse and principal are on break), at 617-926-7766 or kathleen.desmarais@watertown.k12.ma.us.
We will be holding a vaccination clinic on Tuesday, January 11, from 3:30-7:00 p.m. at the Watertown Middle School for 5- to 11-year-olds. Our students 16 and over can get a booster at this clinic as well. Advanced sign-ups are required — please use this link.
Kind regards,
Ms. Kathleen Desmarais, Director of Student Services
Dr. Deanne Galdston, Superintendent
“Over the holiday weekend and today, we were informed of several additional positive cases of COVID within our school community.”
That’s a huge understatement. I have kids in the schools and I have heard of lots of covid cases among them. For the superintendent to claim “several new cases” is a disservice to the community and misleading. The amount of covid cases in Watertown are far beyond the definition of “several”. Just ask parents with kids on the WHS basketball teams. They have many new cases and likely more on the way. Every time one of them gets infected they then go home to pass it along to their siblings, parents, etc creating a domino effect. By the start of school there could be so many more kids infected. Let’s not forget all those doing “at home covid tests” that are not going to be so willing to share their positive results.
The town, school officials, the school committee, etc really needs to step up and make some decisions NOW on how to handle this. Telling people they can go to a vaccination clinic in two weeks is sort of useless.
CVS, Walgreens, Osco are all offering vaccinations so the best advice is to keep searching online for an opening and consider going outside your area to get the quickest appointment.
Wellesley just announced a halt to their winter sports because of high covid numbers among high schoolers. According to that news article they had 49 cases. I think we have more among our students.
CHOOSE TO VACCINATE!!
A Covid “case” does not necessarily mean that the student is very ill.
Students and adults get colds and flu too.
We don’t fly into lock-downs, cancellations, or panic for those things.
I think officials are doing this for political reasons (“Woke” culture) and to cover themselves just in case.
How many students have a cold or flu now?
It is quite well-known, by the way (see link below), that during the 2020 presidential debate Biden said that any president (Trump) that has presided over 200,000 Covid deaths should not be president.
Biden has far surpassed that figure even WITH vaccines.
So why doesn’t Biden resign?
https://www.barrons.com/news/biden-anyone-responsible-for-so-many-covid-deaths-should-not-be-president-01603416304
Anyone who is following the real science knows that the Omicron variant is more transmittable, but yet it is proving to have much less severe effects on people. Again the people who are being hospitalized are the immune compromised, the elderly. those with comorbidities and the obese, which the mainstream media is not telling the public. These are the people we need to concentrate on and suggest not mingle with others. We can’t keep concentrating on kids who are now suffering mental issues at an alarming rate and we don’t have enough mental health experts to help all of them. They need to be able to participate in activities that keep them active and mingle with their peers to develop their social skills. Many articles have been written that if more people get Omicron and develop natural immunities, covid may very well diminish faster. We just need to live with it and go on with our lives. The mainstream media just wants to fill their news cycles with easy to produce numbers and keep people in a constant state of fear. Biden has failed his mission to get rid of covid as he promised in his inaugural address. He said he would have enough test kits for everyone and that has been a big failure. He and his staff new covid wasn’t going away and now he says he didn’t know this surge was coming. He is failing us. Let’s not fail our kids by following his lead.
P.S. It recently was reported that two children died from the flu already and in typical years we sadly lose a lot more kids and adults to the flu. One year I believe it was 108,000. This year the flu vaccine is predicted to be only about 30% effective as they predicted the wrong strain when they developed the vaccine and we don’t quarantine people with the flu. We ask them to stay home until they are well and deal with it.