NMPED News:

SANTA FE — The Public Education Department announced Friday afternoon 14 new positive cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.

Rapid response has been initiated, and all pertinent information has been verified with the schools and school districts.

The following new cases have been reported:

• One case in Bernalillo County. The infected individual is a staff member who was last on campus Sept. 18. The school is in the remote learning mode. All staff members and the parents and guardians of all students in the affected school have been notified of the positive case.
• Four cases in three schools in Chaves County. Two infected individuals are staff member at separate schools and were last on school property Sept. 18 and Sept. 15. One individual is a staff member unaffiliated with a particular school but involved in a district-wide program. This person was last on school property Sept. 21. The fourth Chaves County case is a student who was last on school property Sept. 15. All staff members and the parents and guardians of all students in the affected schools have been notified of the positive cases.

• One case in Curry County. The infected individual is a staff member not assigned to a specific school but involved in a district-wide program. This person was last on school property Sept. 24. All close contacts within the district and parents and guardians of all students who had contact with this person have been notified of the positive case.
• Three cases in Doña Ana County in three schools that are in the remote learning mode. The infected individuals are staff members who were last on school property Sept. 18 (two of them) and Sept. 21. All staff members and the parents and guardians of all students in the affected schools have been notified of the positive cases.
• Four cases in four schools in Eddy County. The infected individuals are all staff members and were last on school property Sept. 15, Sept. 17, Sept. 18 and Sept. 22. All staff members and the parents and guardians of all students in the affected school have been notified of the positive case.
• One case in Los Alamos County at a school in remote learning mode. The infected individual is a staff member who was last on school property Sept. 18. All staff members and the parents and guardians of all students in the affected school have been notified of the positive case.

All “close contacts” will be informed of the positive case and instructed to quarantine for 14 days.

Affected classrooms and facilities will be cleaned and disinfected. Staff must be tested if symptomatic or a “close contact”; however, staff members will not be required to present a negative test result in order to return to work. Symptomatic staff may return to work after 10 days plus 24 hours after the fever is gone and COVID-19 symptoms have improved. Asymptomatic staff who have been “close contacts” may return to work after a 14-day quarantine.

The PED has collected this data since Aug. 17; since then, 160 total cases have been reported in 83 schools. (That number has been adjusted from previous reports after removing a case that turned out to be in a private school.) Of those, 116 have been staff members and 44 have been students. 

For additional information about COVID-19 safety in schools, visit: https://bit.ly/SafeSchoolsNM.