Burrell High School student tests positive for covid-19

A Burrell High School student has tested positive for covid-19 and some students in the district have been asked to quarantine, said Shannon Wagner, superintendent for Burrell School District.

Wagner sent a letter to parents Friday, saying, “We are following the Health Department recommendations and have notified families that need to quarantine.”

While Wagner’s letter commends students and staff for keeping the school from illness, she advised parents to be prepared to “make the shift to virtual learning should your child have to quarantine at some point or the district has to switch to all virtual instruction for a period of time.”

Burrell has offered families the choice to enroll their children for in-person or live virtual instruction as well as its cyber school Burrell eAcademy or another cyber school.

As of last Monday, the percentage of Burrell students attending in person at the high school was 77%; Charles A. Huston Middle School, 76%, Stewart Elementary School 77%, and Bon Air Elementary 83%, according to Wagner.

To protect the privacy of the student, the name and details of the student were not released Friday by the school district.

The state health department does not notify the public about specifics of a covid-19 case because of privacy concerns, said Maggi Mumma, deputy press secretary for the state Department of Health.

“We can’t provide disease specific information about a person or group of people,” she said .

The state conducts investigations for each case, including students, to determine potential exposures such as close contacts and notifies those people as part of health department’s contact tracing efforts, she said.

“It will take time to do case investigations and determine if a case is related to a school exposure or a community exposure,” Mumma said.

Currently, covid-19 cases are surging in Westmoreland County. On Friday, the county reported 109 new cases of covid-19 after the previous day’s record high of 148.