I'm excited to share that a group of our community partners have rallied together to make sure our children and families are safer when we return to in-person learning — including when our children participate in close-proximity sports and activities.
This new initiative is a joint effort by the
Lorain County Public Health,
Mercy Health of Lorain and a university medical research partner to provide COVID-19 testing to our staff and students.
As a result of an incredibly generous donation from one of our local partners, this service will be offered at NO COST to our district or families. Although I’d love to give them a shoutout, they asked to remain anonymous.
COVID-19 testing in Lorain is critical to help our schools not only to assure we react very quickly to any positive case and to assess our mitigation strategies, but also to get a picture of school/community spread to inform us on future decisions.
While there are helpful tools already being used to determine the prevalence of the coronavirus in our area — such as the
Ohio Public Health Advisory System which uses a color-coded system to communicate the severity of exposure and spread by county — we know that county borders are an arbitrary way to determine these factors.
We also know that the demographics of Lorain look very different from the demographics in neighboring districts — and that our particular demographics are disproportionately affected by this virus. For instance, people who live in poverty and racial and ethnic minorities are much more likely to contract, spread, be hospitalized and die from the virus. Our reality is different, and therefore our approach must be different as well.
We believe that an expanded, localized testing initiative through this collaboration will give us a truer picture of the risk for contracting and spreading the coronavirus right here in Lorain.
Additional information is forthcoming, including the opportunity to learn more and ask questions through virtual Town Hall meetings. We will share those details as soon as they are available. Until then, stay healthy, and be well.
Thanks,
Jeff