There have been a total of 32 confirmed positive cases of Covid-19 in the East Penn Schools thus far, by my count.
The Bad News
The bad news is that this figure almost certainly understates the real number. Many of those who catch the virus never experience symptoms, even though they can still transmit it to others. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) now estimates that over 50% of all Covid transmissions happen this way. Moreover, Pennsylvania’s Department of Health and Department of Education have chosen not to use the latest CDC guidelines on defining “close contacts” in school, making it more likely cases will be missed. The spread of the virus is out of control in our community, greatly increasing the likelihood of undiagnosed cases in the schools.
The Good News
The good news is that half of all cases in East Penn thus far have been limited to just two schools: Emmaus High School and Eyer Middle School. Two other schools– Willow Lane and Jefferson– have now been offering in-person hybrid classes for three months with zero confirmed cases; three others– LMMS, Lincoln, and Macungie– have only had a single confirmed case each.
Keeping Up to Date
Parents, teachers, and staff in East Penn receive a notification for each new confirmed case in the district. But such notifications are now frequent enough that it can be difficult to keep track of them all. To help, I put together the graph above summarizing all the cases to date. The bar for each day shows the total number of confirmed cases there has been in the district over the previous 14 day period. The different colors making up each bar show the number of those cases in each school.
Do you want to keep track of these cases in the days and weeks ahead? I will update this graph every day. You can always access the most recent version by clicking here for an interactive tracker (where the graph is interactive and lets you look at the data for yourself).
