4 new COVID-19 cases in Pinellas schools, 14 new classroom quarantines

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Pinellas County Schools reported four new student cases of COVID-19 resulting in one bus and 14 classroom quarantines.

Cases were reported at three additional schools and a case at a school that had already reported known cases.

One student each tested positive Wednesday at Largo High School, St. Petersburg High School, Sanderlin pre-k-8 school and Sutherland Elementary School.

Largo High quarantined five classrooms and one bus, St. Pete High quarantined seven classrooms and Sanderlin and Sutherland quarantined one classroom each.

The district has now confirmed 11 student cases, 11 employee cases and at least 40 classroom quarantines.

The district provides daily updates on new cases. Wednesday’s report covering Tuesday cases showed no new cases.

The updates do not include the number of students or staff quarantined, but instead reports by class. Because in-person class sizes are reduced due to some students utilizing e-learning, the average classroom size can be estimated around 10 students per class. By that estimate, some 400 students may be currently quarantined.

So far, 18 schools have reported positive cases among students or staff, or both. Of those, 12 have issued quarantine orders. Pinellas County has about 200 schools.

Elsewhere in the Tampa Bay area, Hillsborough Schools have reported 177 cases since July 31, numbers that include cases reported before schools opened for in-person learning. The district does not yet report the number of quarantines.

Pasco County reported six cases Wednesday, five among students and one among staff. The district has now quarantined 212 students and 33 employees.

Both Pinellas and Pasco are in their second week of opening for in-person learning while Hillsborough County opened its classrooms this Monday. That district’s first week of classes were held online in what the district dubbed a compromise with the state after having previously voted to go online only for the first four weeks of school. The state squashed that plan, pointing to Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran‘s executive order requiring schools to open brick and mortar schools five days a week or risk losing funding. That order is being challenged, but most schools throughout the state have already opened anyway.