Mira Costa football player tests positive for COVID-19

A Mira Costa football player last week tested positive for COVID-19. Photo

 

A Mira Costa High School freshman football player tested positive for COVID-19 last Friday, according to the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. Superintendent Mike Matthews notified parents and the rest of the MBUSD community in his weekly Monday newsletter. He stressed two aspects of the positive test — that it demonstrated why state guidelines for schools that require the use of cohorts, or small groups of students, are effective; and the importance of the student and his family coming forward with the test results. 

“I am always grateful to employees and families for letting us know about any COVID-related situations and for following the advice given by [the Department of Public Health] to seek out a PCR/molecular (not a rapid/antigen) test, as these tests provide fewer false negative results,” Matthews said. “There should be no stigma associated with this process. In fact, it’s just the opposite. By letting us know quickly, and providing the most reliable data available, we are better able to take the necessary steps that protect all of us.”

Though the Mira Costa campus remains closed to in-person classroom instruction, state and county guidelines released in September allowed athletes to return, so long as they trained in stable cohorts of no more than 12 students. Athletes who participate in sports that take place on campus —  football, baseball, softball, swimming, and tennis —  began practicing again September 29. 

Matthews said that all members of the football cohort will quarantine and not reassemble for 14 days. 

“Even though they have been outdoors, worn masks, and kept six feet of distance, this is the right move,” Matthews said. 

Principal Ben Dale on Wednesday said that all the rest of the cohort had been tested and all had tested negative. 

“The other 11 were all negative,” Dale said. “So we stand back and we evaluate that process. And we say to each other well, our cohorting worked. Because we were able to identify that cohort, shut them down, and get further information.” 

Dale said this was the second time the protocol had been successfully employed within the football program. In the other instance, a player reported that he’d been in contact with somebody outside school who’d tested positive. He and his cohort were quarantined and tested, and all came back negative. 

“So far, our ability to use the protocols and keep our athletics open has worked,” Dale said. “So we’re not going to relax or get comfortable. I refuse to get comfortable on this. You just can’t do it.” 

Dale said a lot of time and effort has been put into the cohort strategy, making sure that cohorts don’t mix and preparing for the possibility of a positive test. 

“We’ve got a good team,” Dale said. “The coaches have been great, the parents have been great, the athletes have been great, and our supervisory team —  the vice principals, athletic director, and our trainers.  We’ve got a lot of eyes on this. I’ve been very pleased with the team and how they work through this difficult situation. If you look around at successful programs and organizations, it takes everybody. So I’ve been very appreciative of everyone’s hard work.” 

Matthews said the use of cohorts has proven essential in starting the district’s child care program and hybrid in-person programs for high needs students. But the superintendent said a similar approach will not enable the high school to reopen. 

“Here’s the thing: cohorts don’t work in large high schools,” Matthews wrote. “Students and employees mix and mingle throughout the day. There are infinite combinations of students and teachers, so that even one case of COVID could quarantine hundreds of people.”  

After apparently encountering blowback for that statement, Matthews stressed in a subsequent email that cohorts are a roadblock to reopening only insofar as reopening guidelines require students to remain in self-contained groups of 12 or fewer. This is because LA County remains in Tier One, or the so-called “Purple Tier” in the state’s framework, which signifies “widespread risk” for COVID-19 infection. Moving into a higher tier in which a full school reopening could occur requires the county average fewer than 7 new daily COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people for two consecutive weeks. LA County recently jumped from 7.4 to 8 cases per day. Even Manhattan Beach, which had leveled out, registered 24 new cases from Oct. 20 to Oct. 27. 

“So what I should have written was that as long as we remain in the Purple Tier, it will be difficult to re-open secondary schools,” Matthews said. “This may change as we move into the Red Tier and beyond. The counties in California where we see secondary schools opening are not in the Purple Tier —  they are in the Red Tier or better. Some of you who know me know that I have a son who is a senior in high school. Like many of you, I want my child back in school, and I have not at all given up on that happening. But I do believe that we need to move into the Red Tier for us to do that, at least under current guidelines.” ER

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