Over the past week, 36 Lake Zurich High School students tested positive for COVID-19, the Lake County Health Department said in a press release.
Additionally, all participants in Lake Zurich High School athletic camps are being instructed to self-quarantine for 14 days from their last possible exposure.
Through contact tracing efforts, the Lake County Health Department identified “multiple social gatherings prior to athletic camps” where exposures may have occurred.
Lake Zurich athletics programs held their first camps July 6. Multiple students were turned away during health screenings at the start of camp because they had possible COVID-19 symptoms.
Other students began experiencing symptoms during the day and were sent home. Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95 was notified that night that multiple students who attended camps across multiple sports tested positive for COVID-19 that afternoon.
On July 7, Lake County Health Department and Illinois Department of Public Health officials met with school district officials and decided to close all Lake Zurich athletic camps until further notice.
On July 12, IDPH contracted a private company to run a mobile testing site at the high school. A total of 355 individuals were tested that day.
“We are grateful to the leadership of Lake Zurich District 95 for assuring proper health screenings were done at their athletic camps last week, because those measures helped identify this cluster of COVID-19 cases,” said Dr. Sana Ahmed, Medical Epidemiologist at the Lake County Health Department, in a press release. “We continue to urge anyone who has COVID-19 symptoms or who may have had direct contact with a confirmed case to get a viral COVID-19 test (also known as a polymerase chain reaction or PCR test) and self-quarantine for 14 days from their last potential date of exposure. We need your help to help prevent further spread of this virus.”
The mobile testing site will again be available on July 19 at the Lake Zurich High School’s Performing Arts Center. Testing for students and staff will be from 9-11 a.m. The mobile testing site will be available for the general public from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., but will close once it reaches 500 tests.
All participants in Lake Zurich athletic camps are being instructed to self-quarantine. A negative test result does not shorten this quarantine period, the Lake County Health Department said, since the virus can take up to 14 days to be detected.
“Our lives are very interconnected and this virus spreads very easily from person to person,” Dr. Ahmed said. “Even if you personally aren’t at a high risk of severe illness, you need to consider that every person you interact with may have someone close to them who is vulnerable. Please, do your part to protect your health and also look out for others. Take the risks seriously so your actions don’t result in someone else’s hospitalization or death.”
As of Monday, at least 10,422 Lake County residents have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began. A total of 408 people have died in the county.
Source: The Daily Chronicle
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