LTE – JoAnn Utphall – 10-13-2021
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The Boyceville School District Annual meeting is tonight (Wed. Oct. 13th).
The following is what I was prepared to read at the Boyceville School Annual meeting tonight during Public Input: Some weeks ago, my grandson was sent home for 8 days from school because he had been around a student who tested positive for Covid and because he had not been vaccinated.
However I think it is discrimination to send home only the unvaccinated students. It divides the students into two groups – dehumanizing the unvaccinated. Also new evidence is coming out that the vaccinated can get sick and/or can carry virus load that is higher than the unvaccinated. For these two reasons I feel that ALL students who have come in close contact with an infected student should be sent home for a period of time.
There are a variety of studies that show that vaccinated individuals can carry the Covid virus and spread it. Remember Professor David Connor, a virologist from the UW-Madison. He stated that “People who have a Delta virus and happen to have ‘breakthrough’ infections can carry these really high levels of virus, and can unwittingly spread the virus to others.” Researchers at the Oxford University Clinical Research Group published a report in August stating that the vaccination reduces the symptom of those that get the infection but it also allows the vaccinated individual to carry 251 times the virus load without becoming ill.
A report published in August from John Hopkins states that “New data was released by the CDC showing that vaccinated people infected with the delta variant can carry detectable viral loads similar to those of people who are unvaccinated.” A fully vaccinated person who experiences a breakthrough infection can spread the virus just as much as an unvaccinated person. Recently the CDC updated their guidelines to state that fully vaccinated people, who have been exposed, should be tested in 3 to 5 days after exposure and they should wear a mask indoors for the next 14 days.
I would like the school to be transparent about the Covid situation at the Boyceville Schools. Each month, I hope that the administration would report
1. How many students tested positive to Covid in the previous month?
2. How many students were sent home because they were near a positive student?
3. How many of those students who were sent home ended up testing positive or having Covid symptoms?
Unless you know these figures, how can you rate your progress? I hope that the School Board will make a point to release these statistics each month to the public. Only through statistics will we know if we are winning the war against this virus.
I emailed this to the following Boyceville board members:
Clerk Amber Carlsrud at
amberc@boyceville.k12.wi.us
Treasurer Erik Evenson at
erike@boyceville.k12.wi.us
VP Jeremy Mittlestadt at
jeremym@boyceville.k12.wi.us
Steve Olson at steveo@
boyceville.k12.wi.us
Pres. Tim Sempf at tims@
boyceville.k12.wi.us
JoAnn Utphall
Boyceville