R.I. reports 2 coronavirus deaths, 76 additional cases; Raimondo moves start of school back to Sept. 14

PROVIDENCE — In a widely expected move, Gov. Gina Raimondo on Wednesday pushed the start of the public school year back two weeks, to Sept. 14, to allow districts to continue to plan for the return of students.

Along with that, the state delayed until the week of Aug. 31 the decision on whether each school will go back fully in-person, fully online, or something in between. Raimondo said the state needed the most up-to-date data to make such important calls.

Making sure schools are safe and ready to open is a “herculean task,” Raimondo said. “Do not underestimate the task. It’s doable, we’re going to do it, our kids deserve it, but it’s an awful lot of work and detail.”

Under the new statewide school calendar, the year will end June 25 and will have 177 days for students. Teachers will have an extra three development days.

Wednesday’s COVID-19 numbers were a bit lower than they’d been in previous days, but higher than a month and a half ago, and higher than where state officials say they can safely remain.

The state Wednesday reported 76 additional positive tests, all but two from Tuesday. Eighty-nine people were hospitalized with the virus on Monday, the day with the most recent data. That’s one fewer than the figure reported from the day before, but still part of a broader upward trend. Two more Rhode Islanders have died in the coronavirus pandemic, bringing the death toll to 1,018, the state reported Wednesday.

Over the last seven days, the state has reported an average of 92.6 new cases per day (8.7 per 100,000 people per day), down from 97 a week ago but up from 46 a month ago.

“If we follow the rules, we’ll be in a good place,” Raimondo said. “If we don’t, then we’ll be in trouble, we’ll be back over 100 a day, hospitalizations creeping up, and then we’ll have to shut the economy, which we don’t want to ever have to do again.”

The state has released benchmarks on whether districts are ready to reopen fully. They include the state being in at least Phase 3 of reopening, which it is, and whether a particular city or town has a low enough caseload. Providence, Central Falls and Pawtucket have all been above that city-by-city threshold.

To reopen schools safely, the state also needs to turn around tests for symptomatic students and staff in two to three days. The state is averaging about four days for test results, which is down from about a week, Raimondo said. The state recently got eight machines that can run rapid tests for schools, which will help turn them around more quickly.

More broadly, schools also need to have hand sanitizer, protective equipment and plans for what to do if kids get sick. The state is even considering bringing in RIPTA and the National Guard to help with getting kids to and from school, said Raimondo, who floated the idea of walking or “scootering” to school.

One thing that’s clear, though, is that in-person learning is better and that kids who won’t have it will be left behind, Raimondo said.

“We owe it to the children to get them into school,” she said.

Said Angélica Infante-Green, the state education commissioner: “The pandemic will be here for a while, but the learning of our kids is the most important work we do aside from keeping them safe. We are not compromising safety as we move forward.”

Education is probably the most pressing challenge in the coming few weeks for Rhode Island, with short-term implications for parents and long-term implications for kids. But trying to get the situation under control for schools to reopen safely is made more complicated by separate yet related problems, all of which came up during Wednesday’s news conference:

The state needs to do a better job with contact tracing, health officials said. Contact tracing is when health officials track down the people who’ve been in contact with a person sick with COVID. That way they can get tested and quarantine or isolate and not continue to infect more people, stopping a chain reaction short.

Although at first most people answered the calls from health officials and shared information, including where they’ve been and whom they’ve been in contact with, compliance has decreased, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, the director of the Department of Health, said. In about 10% of cases, they need to “really work with people” to get them to give their information.

Plus, Raimondo said, they need more people to actually do the contact tracing. The state could use about double the contact tracers it has right now, Raimondo said. Rhode Island is considering outsourcing the work, as other states have done. Right now much of the task is falling to the Department of Health and the National Guard.

“Today, I’m making a plea: If you get the call from the Department of Health, answer the call,” Raimondo said. “If they ask you for contact information, please comply with us. It’s private, we won’t share it with anyone.”

Also, even months into a pandemic caused by an incredibly contagious disease, many people are still going to work when they’re sick. According to a recent state analysis, 49% of people who tested positive and who worked in a dozen categories — including retail, food service, manufacturing, financial services and real estate — had gone to work while symptomatic, sometimes for days on end.

Health officials have also seen some cases linked in particular to carpools, Alexander-Scott said Wednesday, prompting a reminder: Even if you’re in the backseat of someone else’s car, you should still wear a mask.

For new cases, a general pattern has emerged: Older people are going to gatherings to celebrate milestones, like baby showers, graduation parties and funerals. Younger people are getting sick from things like house parties, beach parties and restaurant parties, Alexander-Scott said.

And one place in particular is having problems getting people to comply with coronavirus restrictions: Block Island. It is “not doing well,” Raimondo said when asked about pictures from the ferry. She said state officials had a meeting about it on Tuesday and further action might be in the works.