Rough Start: Indiana Child Tests Positive for COVID on First Day of School

Around the nation, there is a raging debate in communities large and small as to whether or not children should be heading back to school in the fall, or anytime soon, for that matter.

The issue is, of course, COVID-19, and the fear that amassing children, teachers, and staff in such close proximity could create a figurate incubator for the highly contagious virus.

On the other hand, there are very real concerns that being away from public schools puts children into some less than ideal situations with parents who will be juggling some version of home-schooling with their own careers, and placing an unexpected and sudden financial burden on working families.

In some locales, kids are already heading back to school now, as the discussion continues elsewhere…and not always to great success.

As an Indiana school district welcomed students to the 2020-21 academic year, one of their students tested positive for Covid-19 on the first day of class, according to a letter sent to parents.

The Hancock County Health Department notified Greenfield-Central Junior High School Thursday afternoon that one of their students, who had attended part of the school day, tested positive for Covid-19, Superintendent Harold Olin said in a letter.

Olin said the school enacted its “Positive COVID-19 Test Protocol” once school officials became aware of the positive result.

School officials immediately isolated the student within the school’s clinic, and they examined the student’s schedule, including transportation and extracurricular activities, to determine who had come in close contact.

The news will surely stir the already simmering conversational cauldron regarding what a return to normalcy will look like in the United States in the coming months.