As school decision nears, Avula provides mixed bag of information about COVID in Henrico

With just more than a week until the Henrico School Board determines a course of action for the second nine weeks of school, Henrico Health Director Danny Avula Tuesday provided the county’s Board of Supervisors with a mixed bag of analysis about the impact and spread of COVID-19 in the county and region.

Avula addressed the board during a work session to provide a general update about the virus, but the discussion largely involved its impact on schools.

Avula delivered some good news: Henrico’s positivity percentage has been relatively steady recently – below 4% every day between Sept. 21 and Oct. 9, with the exception of Oct. 5 when it was exactly 4%. But he also relayed some bad news: the county’s case rate has been increasing mildly for the past 10 days – up from an average of 16 per day Oct. 3 to 27 a day Oct. 13.

There is more good news, though: Henrico has been averaging between zero and two COVID-related deaths per week and between 1 and 3 COVID-related hospitalizations per week since June 1. And, Avula said, Henrico’s senior living communities – struck particularly hard at the outset of the pandemic – have been relatively free of the virus in recent months and have learned how to handle it much more effectively when it does strike.

The decision about whether, or when, to reopen public schools will depend on several factors, Avula said:
• what do teachers and staff members think about the idea?
• what do families think?
• how prepared are schools to mitigate risk and address cases when they do occur?

In an attempt to answer the first two questions, the school system surveyed families and employees last week. The answer to the latter is more involved; though officials have said they have sufficient supplies of personal protective equipment, another element of that risk-mitigation will depend upon how many students decide to come back to school when that becomes an option.

“As kids come back to school. . . it is not reasonable to expect that we won’t have any cases,” Avula said. “There’s no way to create a zero-risk scenario.”

Instead, he said, a “success” will involve identifying cases quickly and isolating them to prevent a larger outbreak.

That’s what area private schools have done, he said, and his office has organized biweekly conference calls with officials from those schools and from Henrico and Richmond public schools, as a way to share efforts and ideas.

“Our hope is that by sharing more of those best practices, our public schools will be able to adapt [them] to public school settings,” he said.

The Steward School, a private school in Henrico’s Far West End, has been using 6-foot wooden dowels, Avula said, to impress upon young students the distance they must keep between others during the day.

“It does seem a little dangerous,” he said with a chuckle, “but so far it’s been working well for the kids.”

Some private schools have established e-platforms through which parents much confirm before school each day that their children are not exhibiting any COVID symptoms, he said.

Racial, geographic divides
Henrico faces a unique divide – one that breaks largely along racial and geographic lines, Avula said.

“Middle and upper-middle income white families are very ready to go back to school, and then Black families in the eastern part of the county are very apprehensive,” he told the board. “They’ve had family members hospitalized or die from COVID” and feel the stakes are much higher as a result.

“And frankly,” he said, “they are.”

That’s because minorities are affected by the virus at a disproportionate rate in Henrico and nationally, he said. Minorities often are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to work frontline jobs (thereby increasing their risk of exposure) and less likely to have access to quality healthcare than whites.

In Henrico, for example, Blacks account for 31% of the county’s population but 38% of all COVID cases, while whites account for 57% of the population but just 33% of the COVID cases. Hispanics comprise 6% of Henrico’s population but 18% of its COVID cases.

“It’s a really challenging process that the schools are going to have to wade through in terms of if and how” to reopen, Avula said.

County officials are still working to impress upon some groups of immigrants the importance of wearing masks, practicing social distancing and avoiding large groups – efforts that can be more difficult because of cultural and language challenges.

For instance, Avula said, a “machismo” factor has caused some members of the Hispanic community to shy away from wearing masks, feeling that doing so may make them seem weak.

In the Tuckahoe District, Supervisor Pat O’Bannon recently learned of a significant population of Brazilian immigrants, and she communicated with county public relations officials to have COVID-related precautions printed in Portguese and placed at popular gathering spots to help educate them.

Central Virginia COVID burden returns to 'high'

Henrico Schools Superintendent Amy Cashwell addressed supervisors during their evening meeting Tuesday to update the board about the school system's decision-making process.

“This is an incredibly complex situation, and so we recognize that there is probably no approach we can take to this school year and have taken to this school year that’s perfect or that is as we’ve known school to be,” Superintendent Amy Cashwell told the board during its evening meeting Tuesday.

Any approach that the school system takes will prioritize the safety of staff, students and the community, Cashwell said – without hinting whether safety from the virus or from the other impacts of the virus (including mental health issues) might ultimately take priority.

Responding to comments from O’Bannon, who said numerous constituents of hers are desperate for in-person school to resume, Cashwell said she understood.

“We certainly understand that – that is a concern that we’ve heard as well,” Cashwell said. “We are listening to the concerns that are out there and being as responsible as we can to that. No matter which scenario, there are imperfections.”

Last week, the Central Virginia region’s “burden” level – a three-tiered, 24-point scale devised by the Virginia Department of Health that weighs several COVID data points to classified the likelihood of transmission – fell into the “moderate” zone (with a score of 14.8) for the first time. But this week, it crept barely back into the “high” zone (scoring a 16), Avula said.

The region includes a wide swath from Henrico as far south as the North Carolina border. The metric one of the key metrics school system officials are using as they consider what to recommend to the School Board.

Whenever schools reopen to those students whose families choose to send them back, a key element of mitigating th spread of the virus will be the quick isolation and contact-tracing Avula described. His department, an extension of the VDH that oversees both Henrico and Richmond, has grown significantly since the outset of the pandemic – largely by hiring more contact-tracers.

The office had 250 employees before the pandemic began and has added about 120 more in recent months, he said.

“We’ve added a whole other agency within an agency,” he said.

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