Brown County Schools sent out notice early Friday morning that a Brown County High School student had tested positive for COVID-19.

The student had stayed home when symptoms appeared, following the district’s protocol, so no “close contacts” had to be identified in the schools outside the student’s own family, Superintendent Laura Hammack wrote.

On Friday afternoon, Sept. 18, when the state health department updated its confirmed COVID-19 case numbers, Brown County’s total had jumped by six, to 99 from 93 where it had rested for most of the week.

As of Sept. 15, the school district had had no students test positive yet, said Corey Frost, Brown County’s public health emergency preparedness coordinator. The school year started on Aug. 5, and more than 80 percent of students are attending classes in person.

A person associated with the Brown County High School boys soccer team had tested positive on Aug. 31, prompting a quarantine for the entire team, but no players ended up testing positive later.

Over the summer, when free school meals were being distributed and some activities were occurring, two students tested positive for the virus — one in the Eagle Manufacturing program at the high school and one in marching band, Hammack said.

When a COVID-19 case is reported in a school, the school district’s nurse will work with the state health department to do contact tracing, Frost said. Bus routes, class schedules and other information that the school district would have access to would be studied to determine if other students needed to quarantine.

Brown County Schools has been able to stay in its “green” zone for schooling, meaning all students physically in school if that’s the method of instruction they’ve chosen. About 20 percent of students have chosen to attend school online instead.

Details of BCS’ “yellow” plan, which would kick in after 11 percent of students in a school show symptoms for two consecutive days, were sent to parents last week.

Under that model, students would attend school in their building for two days of the week and do remote learning for the other three. Students in Grades K-4 could do remote work with paper and pencil if needed instead of online.

Preschool students could still physically go to school even when a school was under yellow status, the plan says.

Once a school goes on the yellow plan, it would stay there for at least four weeks. If daily symptom percentages of students in the building reach 16 percent for two consecutive days, the school would go on the “red” plan, which has all students at the affected school doing remote learning.

As of Sept. 15, no school was close to going on yellow, Hammack told parents.

Community spread

As of Sept. 16, according to the state health department’s coronavirus map, Brown County was in the “blue” zone for COVID-19 community spread. Blue indicates the lowest level of virus transmission in a county.

Brown County is doing pretty well in dealing with the virus, Brown County Health Officer Dr. Norman Oestrtike told the Brown County Board of Health during their Sept. 15 meeting.

It took place virtually, with Frost Zooming in from the health department’s temporary home in the Brown County Music Center.

The music center reopened as a drive-up COVID-19 testing clinic on Sept. 2.

The health department is renting the site from the music center’s management, Oestrike said. The county received a $100,000 grant to operate the testing clinic through the end of the year, Frost said.

Last week, the clinic was testing about 20 to 25 people per day, Frost said.

Appointments can be made at scheduling.coronavirus.in.gov.

Anyone is welcome to get tested at no charge; you do not have to be a Brown County resident, be referred by a doctor or show certain symptoms.

Tests for active COVID-19 infections can be administered to adults and children age 2 and older.

The health department also can administer regular immunizations at the drive-up clinic which patients may have missed over the spring and summer. Call the health department at 812-988-2255 or the clinic at 812-320-1124 for more information on testing or immunizations.

“Our success rate is we are still one of the lowest-rated counties for coronavirus,” Oestrike told the health board on Sept. 15. “Our positivity rate is less than 1 percent and the state positivity rate is about 7 percent over the past seven days. We are up to three deaths and over 90 cases, but that’s actually extremely good, in my opinion, for our local area.”

Mask mandate

It’s still a statewide requirement to wear a face covering when in a public place in Indiana, including outdoors where 6-foot social distancing isn’t possible. That executive order is in effect until at least Friday, Sept. 25, when Gov. Eric Holcomb plans to readdress the need for it.

Brown County Health Department staff have been keeping records of “pandemic complaints.” They had collected 29 as of last week’s health board meeting, 95 percent of them from locals and 5 percent of them associated with tourism, said environmental health specialist Ernie Reed.

They’re mostly “restaurant complaints,” “a lot of complaints about town in general,” “some claiming they’re not comfortable in town because of the number of people not wearing masks,” Reed said.

Some restaurant staff have “complied pretty well” with the mask mandate and other stores “took a little persuasion,” he said.

Health department staff have had to threaten to close some stores over noncompliance with mask-wearing, said Environmental Health Supervisor John Kennard.

The health department has authority to enforce rules in restaurants and stores that sell food, but there was discussion between the health department staff and board member Jeff Cambridge about whether the health department had a responsibility to enforce mask rules in other retail establishments, like clothing stores and others that don’t sell or serve food.

“If someone’s complaining because a customer or someone walking down the street isn’t wearing a mask, that’s their opinion,” said Cambridge, a licensed pharmacist.

Health department Office Manager Judy Hess said she didn’t want to just ignore complaints that people called in if they weren’t about food establishments, so the office would continue to log them and notify those stores that complaints were being made.

Kennard said it’s hard on retail staff to have to tell a customer they can’t enter a store without a mask on, and he doesn’t want to have to shut stores down for noncompliance. “All you can do is be nice,” he said.