VIENNA — The Maries R-1 School District campus will be closed to students for another week in an effort to bring down the number of students who have tested positive for the virus and their close contacts, all who are quarantined for 14 days.

R-1 Superintendent Mark Parker last Thursday said the administrative team and the school nurse met with Patrick Stites of the Phelps-Maries Health Department and together they made the decision to keep the school closed to students for another week. The school is scheduled to reopen on Monday, Nov. 9.

During that meeting last week, Parker said they looked at the numbers to make the decision. There were 14 positive cases and while they were having the meeting, another positive case was reported to make is 15 cases of the Covid-19 coronavirus. There were 57 new cases the previous week, and 31 new cases the day of the meeting and the numbers continue to go up. He cited free testing events, and continued large gatherings that may have contributed to the higher number of cases.

The health department had a chart detailing each positive virus case and the number of close contacts for each individual, and they numbers were getting big. He said the students and close contacts who were in quarantine will not be finished with it until late next week. If they are staying home in quarantine, they won’t have new close contacts to potentially spread the virus to.

“I don’t want to come back and have it blow up again,” he said. It is hoped that staying closed for another week will bring the numbers down.

The administrative team has been working diligently and sometimes very long hours doing the contact tracing. Each individual who has tested positive is traced for every contact they made in the classroom, cafeteria, and school bus. The parents of all of these students must be contacted and quickly so that an infected person who is asymptomatic does not unknowingly spread the virus to even more people. By late this week, all of the quarantined students will have completed the required 14 days of isolation.

“We are trying to get through this as best we can and keep people safe,” Parker said.

While school is closed, students can continue to be fed by the school cafeteria. During the first week of closure, 75 students were provided meals. The same will be done this week as students will receive a full week of meals, breakfast and lunch. Parents were asked to call the school on Monday morning to order the meals and to pick them up at the high school entrance on Monday from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

While students are staying at home, staff at the school will be working at the campus as students are continuing to learn at home via packets provided by the school or through virtual instruction.

The health department’s recommendation and the administrative team’s decision was made during a week of surging numbers of Covid-19 coronavirus cases in Missouri and the United States. Rural areas were seeing an exponential spread of the virus reflecting virus fatigue or people simply refusing to social distance, wear masks, and frequently wash their hands. In Missouri last week, the state was the eighth highest in the nation for the number of hospitalization of people with the virus, at about 1,500 patients.

In the United States, nearly 1,000 people a day are dying with 91,000 new positive cases a day. The virus death toll in the US has climbed to almost 230,000. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, said if things do not change Americans are heading toward “a whole lot of pain” with additional cases, hospitalizations and deaths. He endorsed a national mandate to wear masks.