One whole class in quarantine, leaders keeping close eye on COVID in Medina County schools

Medina County is reporting 39 active COVID cases across the county as of this Tuesday, September 14. Two more deaths of local residents have been reported on Sept.4 and Sept 8th. Cases appear to be slowing down as a county, while the Castroville area is being hit the hardest with 23 active cases and some of those on school campuses. Local officials are keeping a close eye on the handful of cases that were reported amongst many of the MVISD campuses last week. There has been 1 case identified in Lytle ISD as well as of this Monday.

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MVISD had 5 active cases that were announced last week, and added 2 cases on their campuses this week–a student on Castroville Elementary Campus this past Friday, September 11, and a student on MV Middle School this past Sept 14.
St. Louis Catholic school recently reported 1 positive case of a student and has quarantined the entire class and teacher for the recommended 14 days according to a letter sent out to parents Sept 15th.
Lytle ISD recently learned of one positive case at Lytle Elementary who was on campus Tuesday, September 8.
Devine and Natalia ISDs both reported having no active COVID cases as of this past Monday, Sept 14.
A total of 1,065 COVID cases have been reported in Medina County, of which we now know about 10% were hospitalized during their battle with COVID-19. The numbers of local residents who were hospitalized rose to 104 after backlogged information became available to local county officials. A total of 27 community members have lost their lives to COVID-19.


On September 10th, the county reported 33 more cases of which 27 were backlogged and already recovered by the time they were reported to the local county officials, while several were still active. Then on the 14th another 19 old backlogged cases were reported to the county, and 17 more Sept 15th, along with some new cases.
Of the active cases, Medina County Health Unit Director Patricia Mechler stated, “There is no specific link between our active cases, which are spread between Castroville, Hondo, Devine, Mico, LaCoste, and D’Hanis. Devine’s numbers have really gone down a lot so that is good to see. The are more cases in Castroville now however.”
“We only have one active case in our long term care facilities now that I know of, so that is good to see as well. Many of them have their own antigen testing kits now, so they can test residents whenever they feel the need to and get a fast turnaround,” Mechler adds. “It had been taking too long to get results back, and we needed that information on those residents and staff quicker to be able to make the right decisions.”
Castroville has 14 active (4 of which are associated with MVISD school campuses), Hondo has 12 active cases, and Devine has 3 active cases; Rio Medina LaCoste, D’Hanis each have 2 active cases, and Lytle, Yancey, and Natalia each have 1 active.

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As of this Monday, MVISD has now had a total of 6 cases, with 4 of those being active.
The letter sent out to parents of that campus stated:
“In keeping with MVISD’s practices to respond to COVID-19, we are notifying all student families that a student who was lab-confirmed to have COVID-19 was present on the campus of Castroville Elementary on Friday, September 11, 2020. Due to privacy requirements, we will not be releasing the name of the individual or details that may identify him or her. The local health department has begun a case investigation and will contact any individuals determined to be in close contact with the infected individual. All students and staff that came into close contact will be directly notified no later than September 14, 2020 @ 4:00 PM. Those that were in close contact will remain off campus for up to 14 days to ensure they do not have the virus, so that there will not be any further spread. We will keep you apprised of further updates. While we do not have reason to believe that those who were not in close contact with the infected individual have reason to be concerned, we ask that you, as always, watch for symptoms of COVID-19….”