Student with COVID-19 knowingly attends first day of high school, Oklahoma officials say

Dawson White
·2 min read

A high school student knowingly positive for COVID-19 attended the first day of school in Oklahoma on Thursday, district officials say.

Administrators at Moore Public Schools received an anonymous tip Thursday evening and contacted the Westmoore High School student, KFOR reported.

Moore is a suburb of Oklahoma City.

Officials said the student “was under the understanding that since they were asymptomatic, that they did not need to quarantine for the full ... period,” according to the outlet.

Dawn Jones, director of communications for Moore Public Schools, told the Oklahoman that the student’s parents had miscalculated the end of their child’s quarantine period, the newspaper reported.

After officials received the news, school nurses used contact tracing to determine who had been exposed to the virus, according to KOKH.

The district said no teachers were exposed but that 17 students were in close contact with the infected student — who wore a mask while at school — for longer than five minutes, the Oklahoman reported.

A student at Moore High School also tested positive for the virus, according to KOKH. Eight students at the school were exposed, KOCO reported.

Those exposed at the two schools were asked to quarantine for 14 days, according to the outlet.

“This is a tough time, and there is no denying that,” Jones told KOCO. “The best that we can do is just continue to try every possible safety measure.”

The news comes as officials at Oklahoma State University announced that 23 members of the Pi Beta Phi sorority tested positive for COVID-19, KWTV reported. Only one infected person is symptomatic, according to the outlet.

The whole chapter “is in isolation or quarantine,” KWTV reported. Payne County Health Department is monitoring those infected as it conducts contact tracing, according to the outlet.

Oklahoma has 48,342 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 661 deaths as of Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.