Three ABSS school have identified by school officials as having a cluster of COVID-19 cases. A cluster is defined by health officials as when five or more cases can be linked epidemiologically over the course of 14 days.
Alexander Wilson Elementary School had the highest number of individual cases, with 11 identified. Homer Andrews Elementary School in Burlington had six cases, and Western High School had five.
The clusters have been reported to the statewide database managed by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.
And while three schools have reported clusters, the school system itself has noted the presence of cases which haven’t been defined as clusters, but with as many individual cases as the three schools, at a dozen other schools.
Those ABSS schools having five or more positive COVID-19 cases (among students and/or teachers), but not reported as having a “cluster,” are:
- 11: Southern High School;
- 10: Southern Middle School & Grove Park Elementary School;
- 8: Elon Elementary School;
- 7: Cummings High School and Altamahaw-Ossipee Elementary School;
- 6: Western Middle School, Turrentine Middle School, B. Everett Jordan Elementary School, and Sylvan Elementary School; and
- 5: Broadview Elementary School, and Western High School.
Some schools have a larger number affected by quarantines based on potential exposure to COVID-19 cases: They include Grove Park (53); Broadview Middle (24); Altamahaw-Ossipee and Elon Elementary (21 each); Southern Middle and Sylvan Elementary (20 each); and Southern High and Graham Middle (19 each).
[Source: Alamance Burlington School System; see full list of ABSS schools here: https://www.abss.k12.nc.us/Page/45700]
Individuals with positive cases associated with the cluster and anyone determined to be a close contact to those identified as positive COVID-19 cases have already been notified by the school nurse or a member of the Alamance County Health Department, according to the school system; they have received instructions on appropriate quarantine and health protocols, according to the school system, which also assured that “the three school buildings have already conducted additional cleaning and sanitation protocols, per district guidelines.”
While the school system said the three cluster cases were confirmed Thursday evening, the school system did not issue a press release about the clusters until after 5:00 p.m. on Friday.
