These public and private K-12 schools add COVID positives in York, Lancaster, Chester
Four new area schools now have their first coronavirus cases.
The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control updated its list of COVID-19 in K-12 schools Friday. Three elementary schools — Heath Springs in the Lancaster County School District, Independence in the Rock Hill School District, Orchard Park in the Fort Mill School District — recorded positives for the first time.
Providence Classical School in York County also added its first cases. It’s one of three tri-county private schools to have recorded cases. The state lists 10 private schools in that area.
Three more public schools added their first staff cases, after prior student positives. North Elementary School in Lancaster County and Fort Mill Elementary School in Fort Mill join Rawlinson Road Middle School in Rock Hill.
School districts provide their own, often more updated data than the twice-a-week listing from the health department.
Rock Hill schools
The online dashboard for Rock Hill schools shows 17 new student positives this week, and nine among staff. There are 120 new student and 49 new staff isolations or quarantines.
This school year there have been 89 student and 47 staff positives. More than 10% each of the in-school student and staff populations have been in isolation or quarantine.
Northwestern (19), Rock Hill (16) and South Pointe (10) high schools have had the most student cases.
Fort Mill schools
The Fort Mill district now has 16 student and 12 staff cases. The district only lists active cases on its online dashboard. There are 376 students and 61 staff in quarantine.
Cases are evenly spread. Catawba Ridge and Nation Ford high schools each have three student cases. Fort Mill High School has two, and no other school has more than one. Fort Mill Elementary School has four staff positives. District transportation has two, and no other school has more than one.
Clover schools
The Clover School District shows seven student and three staff cases on its active list. There are 80 student cases this year, and 32 staff cases.
Clover High School has the most at three active student cases. No other school has more than one. The high school also has all three of the district active staff cases.
Clover High now has 44 student and 12 cases this school year.
York schools
The York School District lists active and total cases. The last of six tri-county districts to report a case to DHEC, numbers have grown to 13 active student and six active staff positives. To date there have been 31 student and 16 staff positives.
York Intermediate School has the most active student positives at four. York Comprehensive High and Middle schools have three each, and Jefferson Elementary School two.
With 13 student cases and a staff one this school year, the high school has the most cumulative cases.
Lancaster County schools
Lancaster County schools list weekly data. Last week there were 41 new COVID-19 cases. There were 312 quarantines. There were 11 student positives each at the elementary and high school levels. Middle schools had three. Elementary had the most with eight staff positives, followed by middle (4), district personnel (3) and high schools (1).
Chester County schools
The Chester County School District shows total cases on the district dashboard. There have been 35 to date, 21 student and 14 staff positives. Lewisville High School (10), Lewisville Elementary School (7) and Chester High School (4) have the most combined cases.
The district has 11 new positive cases this week. It’s a record for any single week, but just two cases higher than the first full week of October. In six of the 11 weeks listed, the county had one or fewer case.
DHEC school COVID data
Statewide there are now 3,553 COVID-19 cases in schools. That number is up almost 300 cases from Tuesday. There are 2,475 student cases. Staff cases topped the 1,000 mark Friday, at 1,078.
There are 80 tri-county public schools with at least one case this year. That’s 78% of all school facilities listed. Clover at 90% and Fort Mill at 89% of their facilities with at least one case, lead all districts. On the low end, York still has cases in 67% of its schools.
High schools with the most student cases this year are Clover (21), Fort Mill (13), Rock Hill (10), Nation Ford (8), Andrew Jackson (7), Northwestern (7), South Pointe (7), Indian Land (5) and Lancaster (5).
Non-high schools with the most cumulative student cases are Indian Land (6) and Larne (5) elementary schools, along with Sullivan Middle School (5) and York Intermediate School (5).
York, Lancaster, Chester coronavirus
DHEC also announced new coronavirus cases and deaths Friday. There are four new York County deaths reported. A middle-age York County resident, defined by the health department as age 35-64, died Oct. 23. Two elderly York County residents died Oct. 28, and another Nov. 10.
There were 31 new confirmed or probable COVID-19 deaths statewide. There have been 4,231 during the pandemic. York County has 127 such deaths. Lancaster County has 64 and Chester County 32 deaths.
York County registered 102 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Friday. Lancaster County had 55, with eight more probable ones. Chester County had 16 confirmed cases. There were 1,479 confirmed and 82 probable new cases statewide.
There have been 98 or more new York County confirmed case for five of the past seven days. There were only four such days prior.
