Two more Linden-Kildare employees test positive for COVID-19

Linden-Kildare Superintendent, Keri Winters, announced on Monday that two more employees of the school district have tested positive for COVID-19. Winters announced the first employee to test positive for the virus on March 31.

“Over the weekend, we had two other staff members test positive for COVID-19. The good news is, both staff members were in the same group of staff that has been quarantined since the announcement of the initial positive case. We received word on Tuesday, March 31, that a staff member was positive. At that time, we had all staff members who were in close contact with that person to self-quarantine for 14days. While at home, two other staff members have shown slight symptoms and tested positive for COVID-19. To my knowledge, no other staff members outside of that group, nor any of our students served have fallen ill. It is fortunate that the three staff members that are sick were NOT serving meals to students. There are still four other staff members from that route that have not shown any symptoms.

Due to the recent news, the district is going to make some changes this week. We will still deliver meals to routes today, Monday, April 6. Each student that chooses to will receive 3 breakfast meals and 3 lunch meals today. This will be the only day this week we will deliver meals. We will use the remainder of the week to have our staff stay home and to re-sanitize buses and cafeteria area. Assuming all goes well, we will continue delivery of our routes on Monday, April 13.

This decision did not come easy. I know there are many families in our community that are depending on these meals to help ease the load. I know many families are out of work and some depend on the meals we have been providing. We hope to ease this load by sending several meals out in one-day to last throughout the week. I apologize if this creates a hardship for your family. It is our intention to begin serving meals again in one week.

We gain our information and guidance from the experts at the Center forDisease and Control and Prevention. According to the CDC,“coronaviruses are generally thought to be spread from person to person through respiratory droplets. There is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with food.” The CDC also states, “It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object, like a packaging container, that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.” The CDC goes on to state that “in general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food or products or packaging.” This is why restaurants are still able to serve food as well.

We have been very careful when preparing and packaging food. It has always been our intent to provide and care for our students during this time. I pray no one else gets sick in our community. Please stay home and take care of yourselves and your families and we hope to see you all again on Monday!!

Stay Strong and Healthy Tigers!!!”