Wayne and Clifton Schools Go Full Remote

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Wayne NJ,  Students will begin a full week of virtual learning on Monday, as the K-12 district comes to grips with more potential cases of COVID-19 than its contact tracers can handle, school officials said. Sports and other extracurricular activities also will be suspended until at least Nov. 16.

Wayne Schools are joining  Clifton’s public schools shifting to full remote learning on Monday  because of a rise in local coronavirus cases, including 14 within the schools over the past week. The district, which started the year with full-remote learning, went to a partial in-person learning beginning on Oct. 12. On Wednesday, Superintendent of Schools Danny Robertozzi informed the community of his decision to revert to all-remote learning.

According to data published by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), more than 61,000 pediatric cases of COVID-19 were reported in the US in the last week of October, the highest weekly total to date. Through October 29, more than 850,000 pediatric cases have been reported nationally since the onset of the pandemic, representing 11% of all US cases. The data continue to indicate that severe illness is relatively rare among children; however, a number of states—including Missouri and North Dakota—recently reported deaths in teenagers, their youngest COVID-19 deaths to date. Beyond severe acute disease and mortality, the AAP calls for expanded efforts to evaluate the risk of longer-term health effects due to SARS-CoV-2 infection, including physical and mental health issues. This is particularly important for Black and Hispanic children, who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19. The AAP also notes that the pediatric data likely underestimates the true COVID-19 incidence in children. While many pediatric infections result in mild illness or asymptomatic infection, they can still lead to longer-term health effects or allow transmission of the infection to higher-risk individuals.