The recommendation for Kittitas County public and private schools at this time is to pursue online/remote education for students. The recommendation is based on current rates of COVID-19, existing science regarding COVID-19, and the start of the school year being roughly a month away.
Kittitas County had its first positive case of COVID-19 in March of this year and residents are dealing with this pandemic going on six months. With our ability to reach Phase 3 of the state plan in June, the Incident Management Team (IMT) and the community were hopeful that in-person education could be a possibility. Based on current rates in our county, it is not a safe option to provide in-person education at this time. We are aware that this recommendation has significant impacts and we want our community to have as much time as possible to plan for September and the future of this coming school year.
To date internationally, educational instruction in person has been successful when COVID-19 incidence rates are low at less than 25 cases per 100,000 for a period of two weeks. At this time Kittitas County is over 200 cases per 100,000 for the last two weeks. Our goal continues to be returning to in-person educational instruction as soon as that is safe.
Please do not lose hope during this pandemic. Please take steps to cope with stress. We encourage residents to use resources like Washington Listens at 1-833-681-0211 and build resilience (resources attached) as we continue to navigate through this pandemic.
If you have questions about your health, please contact your healthcare provider or you can call the Temporary COVID Clinic at KVH at 509-933-8850. If you are having a medical emergency, call 911 or go to the Emergency Department at KVH. If you have general questions about COVID-19, please call the EOC at 509-933-8315 or 509-933-8305.
