Hays CISD updates district's COVID-19 response

As Hays CISD continues to monitor information on the coronavirus, schools are implementing new safety measures for students, teachers and staff members in response to the Delta variant case surge. 

Beginning Aug. 16, the district will track close contact interactions; report positive cases; allow remote conferencing for students in quarantine; strongly recommend masks; limit large gatherings and enforce a 50% cap on fan capacity at athletic venues; restrict non-essential personnel on campuses; and increase cleaning and sanitizing throughout campus buildings and transport vehicles.

A 10-day quarantine for anyone who tests positive for COVID-19, vaccinated or not, will be required. Those who have not tested positive but have been determined to have been in close contact with a person who tested positive, will be required to quarantine if they have not been vaccinated. Vaccinated individuals who have not tested positive, but are considered a close contact, will not have to quarantine.

“The best advice is to get vaccinated if you qualify,” Superintendent Eric Wright said. “We can speed up our return to normalcy by encouraging everyone to get shots. Looking at the graphs of new cases for the state and for Hays County, we are seeing numbers that are not as high as the peak last winter, but they are higher than what we saw at the start of last school year. This is not the way we wanted to start the 2021-2022 school year, but we will make the best of it. And we will make safety decisions that are in the best interest of our students, families and staff.”

As of August 11, there are 22,268 COVID-19 cases with 1,968 active cases, according to the Hays County Local Health Department.