Vaccine clinic to address widespread MVHS quarantine

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

A sweeping quarantine of more than half the students at Moapa Valley High School has caused health officials and education advocates to take action and bring more COVID-19 vaccination resources to the Moapa Valley community.

In a multi-agency response, a vaccination clinic will be held in Logandale on Thursday, Sept. 23 from 2-4 pm. The clinic, which is open to all members of the public over the age of 12, will be held in the Gary Batchelor Gymnasium on the campus of MVHS.

The clinic will be offering the Pfizer vaccine which is the only one approved for the 12-18 year-old age group.

Moapa Valley Fire District Chief Stephen Neal, who is coordinating the clinic, said that he had received a call from the Southern Nevada Health District asking for local assistance in setting up the event.

“With the onset and spread of the Delta variant, there have been more younger people nationwide getting sick with COVID-19,” Neal said. “And we have seen that trend bear out in the positivity rates showing up in our kids here in the valley.”

As of the end of last week, MVHS principal Hal Mortensen reported that there had been a total of 55 positive cases recorded at the high school. Twenty-four of those cases had been reported in just the past week, he said.

Mortensen admitted that the majority of those cases either carry no symptoms or have only mild symptoms. But given current health protocols and procedures this rapid increase in positivity has reportedly put MVHS near the top rankings of COVID positivity rates among CCSD schools.

It has also caused an avalanche of quarantine cases at MVHS. As of Friday morning, 478 MVHS students were out of school on required quarantine, Mortensen said. And that is out of a total student population of only about 600 kids.

“The only reason that we are staying open is because of the high vaccination rate among our staff and teachers,” Mortensen said. “Otherwise we would have to quarantine more teachers and there would be no way to keep up.”

In a meeting of the Moapa Valley Community Education Advisory Board (MVCEAB) on Thursday night, Sept. 16, Mortensen reported about the intensive administrative workload involved with managing all of these quarantines.

Mortensen said that for every positive case there is a checklist of around 10 different questions that the school staff must address in order to determine who should be quarantined.

“For example, were masks being worn in the class, or in the weight room or during practice or wherever those kids went during the day,” Mortensen said. “Were the kids symptomatic or asymptomatic? Were classmates quarantined in the previous week? Did different teens interact with each other? Do the kids have a vaccination card on file? And they keep adding on and on to the list of considerations.”

Mortensen said that the most impactful addition to this list of criteria was handed down just the week before. Since the beginning of the school year, if students tested positive the class roster was examined and only the students seated immediately adjacent to the student were quarantined. But the new stipulation required that if two positive cases occurred in a class, the entire class is quarantined under a blanket action.

This is the element that caused the huge influx of quarantines, Mortensen said. With a relatively small student population just a handful of new cases can cause a flood of quarantines. That adds a mountain of administrative work for the MVHS staff, he said.

“On Tuesday morning, we find out that 24 kids tested positive,” Mortensen said. “So there are 19 classes that we have to go through because those kids’ schedules add up to 19 classes.”

Mortensen said that this required one administrator and three office staff members from 7:00 am to 1:00 pm to work out the quarantine notices.

Once those notices go out, there are a flood of parent phone calls asking about details of their child’s quarantine which haven’t been clarified, Mortensen said. In the process, the school must also field a lot of complaints from frustrated students and parents. And Mortensen said he is also acutely aware of the bitterness being voiced on social media about all of these efforts.

“It is a nightmare!” Mortensen said. “It is my goal to keep every kid in class that doesn’t deserve to be quarantined. But the criteria is complex and sometimes unclear, and it is always changing. We are doing all we can.”

“I’m frustrated with this thing,” he added. “I’m frustrated with the social media out there and frustrated that we are trying our best to do our job but our hands are tied.”

Mortensen said that one way for students to be spared the quarantine is through vaccination. Students who can show proof of vaccination are not required to quarantine if exposed to the virus.

I know that vaccination is a hot topic too and it is a choice that every family has to make and I am not pressuring anyone,” Mortensen said. “But that is one sure way out of all of this.”

Mortensen acknowledged, though, that up to now the Pfizer vaccine had not been made available in Moapa Valley. “I have had kids come to me that want to get the shot and to have it all over with; but they would have to miss school or other activities to go out of the community and get it. So I think it is a little bit of an equity issue that we don’t have it available  here for our kids.”

Chief Neal said that he had been asked to coordinate with CCSD health officials on delivering the Pfizer vaccine at this local event.

Last spring, Neal coordinated a whole series of clinics in the community shortly after the vaccine became available. In each of those, the Moderna vaccine was used. Eventually, the number of people showing up to be vaccinated trailed off in those clinics and they were finally discontinued. But free Moderna vaccines have been available all along to those over 18 at the Lin’s Market pharmacy.

This week will be the first time the Pfizer vaccine will be available to local teens.

“We want to make sure that it is available to our kids and to the whole community,” Neel said. “So kids 12 and up can come by and get it. But adults who haven’t yet been vaccinated can get it too. It is open to everyone. And we will stay as long as there is demand.”