The many positive COVID-19 cases connected to a single Fayette school bus garage demonstrate the challenges public health officials face in confronting the disease, Lexington-Fayette Commissioner of Health Kraig Humbaugh said Tuesday.
“Persons with relatively mild illness or perhaps no symptoms at all can unknowingly spread the virus to others who are at higher risk of severe illness and complications,” Humbaugh said.
Ten percent — 17 — of Fayette County’s coronavirus cases were found in employees in one school district building, the Miles Point bus garage.
One has died. Others have been hospitalized.
Based on communications and reports received from the school district and its employees, the health department believes that the “actions that the district has taken during this situation were consistent with the knowledge available at the time they were taken.”
“Unfortunately, many of the cases of COVID-19 were recognized well after FCPS had closed the facility,” Humbaugh said.
The Fayette County Schools’ spokesperson and the board chairwoman said Monday that the district did all it could to prevent the spread of the virus among its employees even though it publicly disclosed districtwide only four out of 27 total cases before Sunday night. The district initially publicly revealed only two of the five schools where staff members had tested positive.
Shacora Faulkner, the daughter of school bus driver Eugenia Higgins Weathers who died Saturday after testing positive for COVID-19, has said she didn’t think that enough precautions were taken with school bus garage employees or that district officials were quick enough to notify other employees of exposure.
“Fayette County did not protect us,” Faulkner, also a school bus driver, told the Herald-Leader Sunday. “They did not inform us. Honestly, I feel like they did not care about us. They waited until after everything had blown up to actually contact employees and tell us to stay . . . on quarantine.”
Fayette school board member Tyler Murphy on Monday shared an email that he wrote Superintendent Manny Caulk on March 13 indicating he feared that some administrators in the district were approaching the crisis with a “lackadaisical air” inconsistent with recommendations from Gov. Andy Beshear and public health officials.
“In addition to the public health concerns, all it takes is one incident or one staff member testing positive for this to have a severely negative impact on our district in multiple ways,” Murphy wrote. “Perception — especially in the context of this pandemic — matters here. And if the perception is that our approach or procedures are out of step with the statewide recommendations, I worry about the consequences of that.”
CASES GREW AFTER FAYETTE SCHOOLS CLOSED
District spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said in the past two weeks while schools were closed, the district was made aware when several of its 9,057 employees tested positive for COVID-19. At least 16 percent of the total 170 cases in the county occurred in the district.
In each case, the district worked with the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department to determine how many coworkers were at elevated risk of COVID-19 because of contact with the infected employee. Those coworkers were notified.
As the volume of cases grew throughout the county, employers have notified those exposed, a job initially performed by the health department.
Two Fayette employees who tested positive worked at the Liberty Road school bus garage. Among the 17 positive cases at the Miles Point garage was Weathers, the 56-year-old school bus driver who later died from the virus.
At least two of the transportation employees are seriously ill in the hospital, one of their relatives said.
Another eight infected employees worked elsewhere in the district.
After employees’ relatives spoke out, Deffendall said Monday that workers tested positive for COVID-19 at James Lane Allen, Lansdowne, Meadowthorpe, Southern and Tates Creek elementary schools. District employees had previously only announced the cases at James Lane Allen and Southern.
Staff and families at James Lane Allen, Lansdowne, Meadowthorpe, Southern and Tates Creek elementary schools were notified when employees at those schools tested positive for COVID-19, Deffendall said.
By far, the hardest hit group was bus drivers and transportation workers.
Because of a program that feeds students when they’re not in class, bus drivers and transportation workers continued to report to work at the bus garages after Gov. Andy Beshear told schools to close to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
District officials said they told transportation employees that at no time were they required to work after March 13, the last day students were on campus.
However, school bus employees initially expressed concerns that they wouldn’t get paid if they didn’t deliver meals to families at community drop-off points, said Debbie Bryan, president of the Fayette County Educational Support Professionals Association that includes school bus employees and support staff that want to join.
Deffendall said as soon as a member of the transportation team who was involved in the distribution of food at bus stops was diagnosed with COVID-19, the district stopped the school bus delivery system and closed both bus garages on March 25.
“We sent phone calls, texts and emails to every family in the district and notified the media. Once we stopped the service, there was no compelling public health reason to share each diagnosis with the public when other transportation employees tested positive,” Deffendall said.
Of the 27 total cases, officials told the entire district and the public about four between March 22 and March 25.
“It is not appropriate to do a press release or notification every time someone with a connection to the district is diagnosed with COVID-19 if there is no increased risk,” Deffendall told the Herald-Leader.
180 EMPLOYEES ASKED FRIDAY TO QUARANTINE
Deffendall said that all 180 employees based at the Miles Point garage were asked Friday to self-quarantine out of an abundance of caution.
In accordance with privacy laws, “and in partnership with the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, we will share information when there is a public health reason to do so,” Deffendall said.
Board chairwoman Stephanie Spires, responding on behalf of all board members, said district officials had been transparent in an evolving situation.
The district has “gone above and beyond to not only help the health department with notifying individual employees who may have had close contact with those who have tested positive, but also inform other staff members, families and the community at large as appropriate,” Spires said.
“Employees on the front lines in every profession are heroes for being willing to leave their homes to serve others,” Spires said. “The district took all recommended precautions to protect its employees and it is tragic that one of them has died. But COVID-19 is incredibly contagious and we all share responsibility in stopping the spread.”
In Jefferson County, just two school district employees have tested positive for the coronavirus after schools closed March 13, Jefferson County Public Schools spokesman Mark Hebert told the Courier-Journal.
He said the district did not notify any JCPS staff or families of the positive cases. The Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness reviewed the two cases and advised the district that neither the health department nor Jefferson County schools needed to take any further action.
