Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson learned on Friday that he had tested positive for COVID-19.
The positive result came after a test on Saturday, City of Oak Ridge spokesperson Lauren Gray said.
She said Watson has mild symptoms and no fever; he is just tired.
It’s unclear when and where he was exposed to the virus.
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Oak Ridge Schools reported 11 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, a record high.
That’s almost as many cases reported in one day as has been reported in each of the previous two weeks. Twelve cases were reported in each of the last two weeks.
Twenty-three new cases have been reported since Wednesday, according to an Oak Ridge Today tally.
With the new cases, the school system has reported 56 cases of COVID-19 since October 21. The surge started after fall break, although it’s not clear if the two events are connected.
The new cases reported Friday included four students at Oak Ridge High School, three students at Jefferson Middle School, three students at Robertsville Middle School, and a staff member at Woodland Elementary School.
Recently, the most cases, 11, have been reported among Jefferson Middle School students. Those 11 cases were reported in nine days, since Thursday, November 5.
In that same time, the second-highest number of cases, nine, were reported among Robertsville Middle School students.
[Read more…]Starting Monday, middle school students who attend classes in person will return to the alternating schedules used earlier this year, Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers said in a letter to families and staff members on Friday.
The transition back to alternating schedules is due to an increase in the number of students being quarantined, Borchers said. Quarantined students cannot attend school at all for face-to-face instruction, he said.
“We realized that bringing all middle school students together had the potential to increase the number of students we would be sending home to quarantine when a single peer tests positive for COVID-19,” Borchers said. “Due to the increase in the number of students being quarantined, it is our plan to transition back to the alternating A/B schedule effective Monday, November 16, 2020.”
Most students at the middle schools and high school had started the school year with staggered schedules. A minority of students selected an online-only option.
Using the staggered schedules, some students have attended classes on Mondays and Thursdays, and others have attended on Tuesdays and Fridays. Students have then had online classes the other three days.
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In a press release Thursday, the City of Oak Ridge said it is alarmed by the 12.5 percent positivity rate for COVID-19 in the Oak Ridge area, and wastewater testing shows the disease is present across the city.
The positivity rate measures the percentage of tests that return positive results out of the new tests each day. A 12.5 percent positivity rate means that 12.5 tests are positive out of each 100 new tests, on average.
A 12.5 percent positivity rate is high. World Health Organization guidelines call for a positivity rate below 5 percent for 14 days before activities re-open.
In its press release, the city said the 12.5 percent positivity rate in the Oak Ridge area was measured earlier this week and was obtained from zip-code specific data from the Tennessee Department of Health.
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Tennessee reported a record number of COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations on Wednesday.
The Tennessee Department of Health reported 89 more deaths and 1,713 current hospitalizations (up by 79). That’s the most deaths ever reported in one day due to COVID-19 in Tennessee and the highest number of current hospitalizations.
The previous high number of deaths in one day in Tennessee was 78 on Friday, October 30.
The previous high number of current hospitalizations was 1,634 on Tuesday. And Monday (1,543) was the previous high before that.
The statewide positivity rate, 11.67 percent, remained high on Wednesday.
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Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, resigned Friday.
The NNSA oversees the work at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge and other nuclear weapons sites across the nation. The NNSA, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, maintains nuclear warheads, produces fuel for the nuclear navy, and works on nuclear nonproliferation, among other activities.
Gordon-Hagerty, who was also under secretary of energy for nuclear security, became the first woman to lead the NNSA in February 2018.
It’s not clear why she resigned Friday or whether her resignation was voluntary.
Defense News reported that the resignation was driven by almost a year of clashes between Gordon-Hagerty’s office and Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette, including over budgets.
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The COVID-19 surge that started among students and staff members at Oak Ridge Schools three weeks ago continued in the school week that ended Tuesday, with the highest number of recent cases reported among Jefferson Middle School students.
There have been five COVID-19 cases reported among Jefferson Middle School students since Thursday. That’s close to half of the cases reported in Oak Ridge Schools in the past week.
There have been two student cases reported at Robertsville Middle School since Thursday and one student and one staff member case reported at Oak Ridge High School.
A total of 12 cases were reported among students and staff members in Oak Ridge Schools in the school week between last Wednesday and this Tuesday. That matched the total of 12 cases in the previous week. There were nine cases the week before. That’s a total of 33 cases in the past three weeks, or 11 per week on average.
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One hundred twenty-five new cases of COVID-19 were reported in Anderson County this weekend as the state upgraded its surveillance system while warning, on Saturday, of higher potential new case numbers across the state as a backlog is cleared.
Anderson County reported 63 new cases of COVID-19 on Saturday, a record high, and another 62 new cases on Sunday.
Another 53 new cases were reported on Monday. From Friday to Monday, 217 new cases were reported in the county.
Before Saturday, the previous daily high in Anderson County was 46.
The 14-day average of new cases in the county exceeded 30 new cases per day for the first time. It was 31.1 on Sunday. The average in the previous two-week period was 21.6.
[Read more…]Fourteen city employees have had COVID-19 and 32 people have had to quarantine due to potential exposure since the pandemic began in March, and the Oak Ridge City Council will consider a resolution this evening that asks people to wear a mask, wash their hands frequently, avoid crowds, and maintain a distance from people outside their household.
All of the infected municipal employees have recovered, the City of Oak Ridge said in a brief statement in response to questions on Monday. The positive test results have been since March. It wasn’t immediately clear if the infections have been spaced out over time or if they have been clustered in any months.
Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson has recommended the precautions, according to a resolution that City Council will consider during a regular meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, November 9.
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Roane County reported a record-high new 67 COVID-19 cases on Monday, and the test positivity rate in the county is very high, close to 20 percent, according to data published by the Tennessee Department of Health.
In a Facebook update, Roane County Executive Ron Woody reported an even higher number of new cases on Monday, 72. Woody said about half of those cases might be linked to one group of people.
The previous record of new daily cases in Roane County was 41 on Wednesday, October 28. (The high in Anderson County, also reported last week, is 46.)
The 14-day case average through Thursday was 26.2 new cases per day. That’s up from 15.3 in the previous two-week period in Roane County and higher than the current two-week average of 24.9 new cases per day in Anderson County.
On Thursday, the state health department said the seven-day average of the positivity rate in Roane County was 19.4 percent. That’s very high. The World Health Organization has recommended that the positivity rate be at 5 percent or lower for 14 days before activities re-open. The daily positivity rate measures the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests out of the new daily tests.
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The highest number of new COVID-19 cases in Anderson County was reported in October. The increase in cases last month was about 37 percent larger than the earlier peak in July.
While October is now the peak month for cases so far, it wasn’t the worst for deaths or hospitalizations. There were three deaths due to COVID-19 in Anderson County in October and 10 hospitalizations. The most deaths, five, were reported in September, and the most hospitalizations, 16, were reported in July.
On Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Health reported that Anderson County had averaged 24.9 new cases per day during the past 14 days. That was up from 18.6 new cases per day, on average, during the previous two-week period.
The average positivity rate continues to be high. The seven-day average on Thursday was 12.6 percent, according to the Tennessee Department of Health.
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The number of new COVID-19 cases reported among students and staff members surged in Oak Ridge Schools during the past three weeks.
There have been 27 cases reported since October 15. That’s an average of nine new cases per week during a three-week period.
It’s about triple the average number of new cases reported during the previous high period in August, when roughly 3.3 new cases were reported per week during a three-week period.
The increase in new cases in the school system has occurred as the number of new cases has also risen significantly in Anderson County and Tennessee, surpassing the July peak.
The 27 cases reported in the past three weeks in Oak Ridge Schools represents about 57 percent of the total 47 cases reported since the school year started July 29.
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