Since Tucson-area schools returned from winter break, district personnel have been battling a rising number of COVID-19 cases that has put a strain on their staffing resources, forcing them to close classrooms and scramble to find substitutes to fill in for teachers out sick.
“Like the rest of the country, in this region, we’re also seeing a surge in COVID right now,” said Alli Benjamin, the director of public relations for the Marana Unified School District. “Covering more staff who are sick is definitely a challenge. We’ve had teachers and staff have to be really flexible, so that we can have adequate coverage for our students.”
As of Jan. 7, the Marana school district had recorded a total of 55 active coronavirus infections across the district. By Wednesday, Jan. 14, that number had increased to a total of 253 active cases. It was not clear how many of those active cases were staff.
At the Sunnyside Unified School District, the second-largest in the county, spokeswoman Marisela Felix said that both student and teacher absences were particularly high compared to pre-pandemic years.
For students, she said, attendance numbers in different schools ranged widely from 55% to 90% of students on campus during the first week back from break.
She added that with the higher-than-usual number of teachers who were absent during that same week, administrators had to act quickly to fill in the positions with substitute teachers and other staff members on site.
“What happens is it becomes like an all-hands-on-deck situation, where teachers, coaches, assistant principals, academic behavioral support specialists come in and sub for those classes,” Felix said of becoming more flexible with the staff on site.
At the Tucson Unified School District, the area’s largest, administrators recorded 84% of students in attendance on Jan. 7, much lower compared to the 91% attendance recorded on the same day in 2019.
The Catalina Foothills School District saw a lower absentee rate among its students during that same week, with student absences ranging from 2% to 12% at different schools.
Spokeswoman Julie Farbarik also said the all absences couldn’t be directly attributed to COVID-19.
“During the first week back from winter break, school absences included many reasons like flight cancellations, non-COVID illness, car trouble and bereavement, just to name a few,” Farbarik said.
COVID-19 cases in schools can be tracked at tucne.ws/1iz0.
Quarantine policies
COVID-19 data for TUSD also showed a large jump in cases with a total of four infections on Dec. 17 (the day prior to winter break) and a total of 289 student and 41 staff active infections as of Jan. 10.
Student infections began showing a downward trend throughout the week, with 263 active positive student cases on Tuesday and 231 on Wednesday, the most recent day for which data was available. Staff cases remained the same at 41.
There were a total of 25 classroom closures throughout TUSD during the first week back from winter break, according to data provided by the district.
The district recorded 1,887 teacher absences over those first five days of classes, compared to 1,009 absences during the same period last year. Each day a teacher misses work counts as one absence. The district has about 2,500 teachers.
Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo explained during the TUSD governing board meeting last Tuesday that the district did not have the authority to switch all schools to distance learning despite the increase in infections and strain on staffing resources, citing an order signed by Gov. Doug Ducey.
“The only way that schools and districts can go into a state of remote learning, essentially 100% remote districtwide, is through an order from the Arizona Department of Health Services or through an order from the Pima County Health Department, that must be approved by the (AZDHS),” Trujillo said.
He added that one of the main factors driving teacher absences were the district’s quarantine policy for those who have been exposed or had close contact with a COVID-19 positive person.
So, in an effort to relieve staffing shortages and respond to parents’ concerns about students missing classroom time, the governing board members voted 3-1 to change their policy from 10 days of quarantine upon having close contact with a COVID-19 positive person to five days if they meet certain criteria.
“Test to Stay” program
Another effort that is under discussion at TUSD but has already been implemented at other school districts is the county’s new “Test to Stay” program.
Under the program — an entirely optional program for parents — students can remain in school after being exposed to a positive case by testing negative on the first, third and fifth day after exposure and wearing a mask for 10 days.
But Trujillo noted the shortage of testing kits throughout the country and said that implementing that program may not be feasible with a short supply of kits.
At the Marana district, spokeswoman Benjamin said that they had implemented the Test to Stay program, but it would be the families’ responsibility to obtain the testing kits.
“We prioritize getting them to staff members and families in need, but we do not have capacity at all to distribute for all the cases,” Benjamin said, adding: “We’re just taking it a day at a time and doing the best that we can with the resources and staffing that we have available.”
The Tucson, Sunnyside and Catalina Foothills districts have mask mandates at schools. Marana does not require masks, but encourages its students and staff to wear face coverings.
Other COVID-related news
More people in Arizona and Pima County tested positive for COVID-19 in the first week of January than any other week on record.
For the second week in a row, new COVID-19 cases more than doubled in both places, this time rising nearly 120% statewide and 130% countywide from Jan. 2 through Jan. 8, which is the most recent, complete week of data.
“We are without a doubt in a very accelerated phase of this pandemic here in Arizona,” said Dr. Joshua LaBaer, executive director of Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute. “And there’s no sign of it slowing.”
The highly contagious omicron variant is infecting so many people that hospitals in Pima County are allowing some health-care workers who have COVID-19 to work.
So many health-care workers are getting sick that it’s exacerbating the staffing shortage in hospitals, Pima County Health Department Director Dr. Theresa Cullen said.
For example, an executive at Banner Health sent an internal memo to staff on Dec. 13 telling them that they could decide to work, even if they tested positive for COVID-19, if they are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms and take certain safety precautions.
Ultimately, it’s up to individual employees to decide, according to the memo, but supervisors may send employees home if they appear too ill.
Banner Health based this policy change on updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that outlines when employees should return to work.
This decision to allow infected staff to work is becoming more common among hospitals in Pima County and across the nation.
For example, Tucson Medical Center also chose to adopt a similar policy, which does not require an infected employee to test negative for COVID-19 before returning to work, according to a TMC spokeswoman.
“We are aware of other Arizona-based health delivery systems that adopted similar crisis staffing models during the week of Jan. 10, 2022,” Cullen said. “Health-care systems need to be able to care for patients and keep their doors open. Many hospitals throughout the country are in similar situations to those in Pima County.”
Hospitals are stuck between and rock and a hard place, said Dr. Joe Gerald, an associate professor with the University of Arizona’s College of Public Health.
It was “necessary” for these hospitals to make these decisions, he said, but he stopped short of characterizing them as good or bad.
“It’s not ideal. It’s not optimal. I don’t think it’s something that the evidence says we should do,” Gerald said. “I think it’s something that the circumstances are requiring of us because all the decisions that hospital administrators face right now are bad. There are no good options.”
On Jan. 13, only 7 adult ICU beds were available in Pima County, or about 2% of all these beds, according to data published by the county’s health department.
On the same day across Arizona, 75 adult ICU beds were available, or 5% of all these beds, according to data published by the ADHS.
“Hospitals are at capacity. As more COVID patients are admitted, fewer non-COVID patients are able to receive care in a timely fashion, so their care is delayed,” Gerald said
“If you were to show up and you’re having a heart attack and it’s an obvious medical emergency just like COVID would be potentially a medical emergency, those patients are going to get admitted,” he said. “So it’s someone else further down the acuity line that doesn’t get the bed.”
Hospitals in Arizona have seen 7 to 10 days of increasing occupancy in general wards, but ICU occupancy hasn’t increased by much, Gerald said, adding that it’s hard to know where hospitalization numbers are going from here because they tend to lag behind cases by about a week or so.
Gerald thinks, however, that COVID-19 hospitalizations will rise through the end of the month, peaking 7 to 14 days after cases peak. Then he expects cases and hospitalizations to decrease.
It’s too soon to know just how deadly the current wave of COVID-19 cases will be since death data lags behind data on cases and hospitalizations by several weeks.
However, Arizona’s cumulative COVID-19 death rate, which is calculated from Jan. 21, 2020, is the second highest among states, with 343 deaths per 100,000 people. Mississippi has the highest rate, with 355 deaths per 100,000, according to data published by the CDC.
“What we have been told to expect is here. What happened in South Africa, Western Europe, the East Coast is now happening here. What we’re going to see is a rapid escalation. Cases probably top out somewhere around 2,500 cases per 100,000 residents,” Gerald said. “I’m still thinking a peak is very likely almost certainly before the end of the month.”
Arizona had about 1,500 cases per 100,000 people in the first week of January, according to data from the ADHS.
Gerald said that it seems enough people over the age of 50 have been fully vaccinated in Pima County to keep the hospitals from imploding.
“We could have done better,” he said. “But it looks like we may have done just well enough to, once again, eke by.”
