DCPS hosts vaccine event as district-wide COVID cases increase

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — COVID-19 case numbers continue to climb in Duval County schools.

The latest data from the DCPS COVID dashboard shows 589 total district-wide cases.

“We’ve just been reading, we get notifications from the schools; and the numbers, (it’s )just barely been like a week and a half, they’re high, and you just started school and almost a third of your school is missing,” mother Mellisa Cerna said.

As part of the Duval Vax of Kindness campaign, DCPS hosted a vaccination clinic at Atlantic Coast High.

“We are expecting to see several hundred (people),” DCPS Director of School Health Services Elizabeth Trisotto said.

Action News Jax was not allowed inside the event, so we caught up with families outside.

One family just moved here from Chicago, they said Jacksonville’s COVID numbers are shocking.

“Where we used to live, we didn’t have high numbers, you would say,” Cerna said.

She also said underlying health issues are a concern.

“He’s (Josiah) asthmatic. I’m asthmatic. It’s just the underlying issues we have that this was going to help us just to be more protected,” Cerna said.

7th grader Josiah Cerna said he got vaccinated because he wants to hang out with his friends.

“Some people might not respect the mask rules, and when we hang out after school we’re not going to want to wear masks. If we’re in my house with my friends, I’m not going to want to wear a mask inside where I don’t really need to,” Josiah said.

Parents like Chris Adams notice the Delta variant is infecting more kids.

“A lot of kids are still getting sick from COVID, so we just wanted to make sure he gets vaccinated,” Adams said.

Now through mid-September DCPS is implementing new contact tracing guidelines to better inform families of the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

DCPS said the Department of Health has not been able to keep up with the contact tracing caseload.

Now, if a case impacts an elementary school, families of students in the affected class will receive a letter informing them of the case. Also, an elementary class will move to online learning if two or more classmates get COVID in a seven-day period.

You can find all the new changes here.

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