Just 22 Madison Metropolitan School District students and teachers reported testing positive for COVID-19 over the past week, the lowest weekly count since the school year began.
According to the district’s case tracker, updated weekly on Wednesdays, 86 people were considered a close contact over the past week, which included Wednesday through Friday, the days off for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
It’s a stark change for the district’s numbers, which had been steadily on the rise and reached a weekly high in last Wednesday’s update, with 111 positives and 669 close contacts. The numbers had grown each of the four weeks prior to that, as well, after reaching low points of 152 quarantines the week of Oct. 14-21 and 35 new cases Oct. 21-28.
The district has totaled 767 positive cases and 3,957 close contacts since Aug. 18. That includes 133 cases and 756 close contacts over the past 14 days.
More than 25,000 students attend MMSD schools and more than 3,000 staff members work in the district.
Recently, the district updated the tracker to delineate between student and staff positive cases over the past 14 days. In this most recent period, 121 students and 12 staff have tested positive.
The decrease from recent updates mirrors that of Dane County as a whole, as the numbers in schools often have since students returned to buildings. According to the Public Health Madison & Dane County data dashboard, there has been a 14.9% drop in new cases over the past two weeks, with decreases for school-age children, as well.
For children in the 5-7 age range, the seven-day average shows 35.7 cases per 100,000 people, with the 8-11 age range at 44.9 per 100,000. Those are both well below recent pandemic peaks of 62.8 and 76.1, respectively, which both came earlier this month.
Those two groups became eligible earlier this month for a pediatric dose of the Pfizer vaccine. The shot regimen calls for two shots spaced two weeks apart, and children are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after their second shot — meaning only the earliest to receive the shot have been fully vaccinated at this point.
The state Department of Health Services vaccine data page does not yet have numbers for the age group.
For the 12-17 age group, which has been eligible for the vaccine for months, the recent peak was at 26.6 cases per 100,000 people — far below its pandemic high of 81.1 per 100,000 in November 2020. As of Nov. 29, that was down to 17.3 per 100,000.
The biggest jumps in numbers by school came at Elvehjem and Sandburg elementary schools. Elvehjem had six students or staff test positive and 32 considered close contacts over the past week, while Sandburg has three and 28, respectively.
Among middle and high schools, only a few had a case at all, with West High School having the highest number of close contacts at nine.
Students and staff are identified as close contacts through contact tracing according to the district’s health and safety protocols. Those who are vaccinated and asymptomatic are not considered close contacts regardless of how much time they spent with someone who tested positive.
