Coast HS goes virtual after 14 students test positive for COVID-19
All students at Long Beach High School will switch to distance learning after 14 students tested positive for coronavirus and more than 135 students were identified as close contacts, the district announced Monday evening on its website.
The move effectively closes the school until 2021, as the distance learning will last through Dec. 18, which was to be the last school day before the Christmas holiday started. Students are scheduled to return to campus on Jan. 6.
Long Beach High School’s outbreak came the day after state health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs wrote on Twitter that “the Thanksgiving surge has arrived.”
With the new case figures released by the state health department on Monday—an additional 1,263 cases on a day that usually has a relatively low number because private labs are closed over the weekend—South Mississippi hit a grim milestone of 20,000 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began.
This is not the first time Long Beach has had to send an entire student body home to quarantine. In late September, Long Beach Middle School closed after 15 students tested positive and 165 were identified as close contacts.
Other schools that have closed for two weeks after a large percentage of students tested positive of were exposed to COVID-19 include Biloxi High School and Hancock High School.
In the two weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday, about 1,500 students across Mississippi’s southern six counties were in quarantine due to possible coronavirus exposure.
