By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – As Shrewsbury continues to be designated a red high-risk community by the state, Dr. Joseph Sawyer, school superintendent announced at the December 16 School Committee meeting that there have been 20 new coronavirus cases reported within the in-school hybrid learning model and that the cumulative case load since the beginning of school is 137.
“Today we have the first case based on the contact tracing that we are doing is a possible school exposure,” he stated. “Again, it would be a single case…we are investigating further whether or not that was a potential in school transmission.”
They have communicated with the local Central Massachusetts Alliance Public Health Authority as well as the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
“The public health authorities made the determination that it would be helpful to investigate further by providing their mobile testing unit to come out to the school – I’m not going to say the school because we are in the process of communicating with that school community and that would be happening shortly.” Sawyer continued.
Sawyer also noted that four cases of COVID -19 were found last week in the remote learning cohort.
The trends are concerning but district officials will continue to monitor the situation closely and share information with the community in a transparent manner.
