The Clark County School District is making a handful of changes beginning Wednesday, including no mask requirement on school buses and eliminating mandatory weekly COVID-19 testing.
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As the last day of operations for the drive-thru COVID-19 testing site at Fiesta Henderson draws near, the testing site at Texas Station is scheduled to operate until February 20.
The tests first became available to order through the federal government last week.
The new sites at Texas Station in North Las Vegas and Fiesta Henderson are capable of administering 40,000 tests a day, five days a week.
The site at 851 E. Tropicana Ave., just east of Paradise Road, across from UNLV’s Thomas Mack Center, will be closed from Sunday through Christmas.
Three employee unions say no formal negotiations have occurred yet with the Clark County School District after the School Board approval of COVID-19 vaccinations on Sept. 2.
The offering is made possible by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Community Eligibility Provision, which serves schools and school districts with a high poverty rate.
The Clark County School District reports 728 new COVID-19 cases so far this month, but the overall impact is not clear because it isn’t saying how many have been “excluded.”
Clark County School Board President Linda Cavazos says she has received threats following the board’s decision last week to move forward with mandating COVID-19 vaccinations for employees.
The Clark County School District next week will consider creating a policy that would require all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“We’ve got to be really careful protecting individual cases,” Clark County schools superintendent says of the decision to withhold the figures.
Teachers reported long lines at district testing sites on Tuesday, including more than 100 people at Mojave High School in North Las Vegas at the height of the rush.
Documents show the health insurance trust that covers Clark County teachers was $43 million in debt as of February — the first indication of the scope of the deficit.
The new recommendations still call for masks in crowded indoor settings like buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters, but they are expected to help clear the way for reopening workplaces, schools and other venues.
The health district’s chief health officer says about 50 percent of eligible Clark County residents 16 and older has received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine. Clark County has set a threshold of 60 percent before fully reopening.