Coleville High School (Bridgeport high school students attend CHS) in the Eastern Sierra Unified School District.
Sierra Wave News has received information from concerned parents of students in the Eastern Sierra Unified School District in Coleville and Bridgeport. Just yesterday, Sierra Wave reported on the over-the-air news and online at sierrawave.net. Our article, 60 Positive COVID-19 cases reported at Marine Mountain Warfare Training Center), on Mono County s’ Health Department, Nov. 3rd press release, “confirmed that, to date, no cases among school children have been identified,” and that “Currently, there is no evidence that the outbreak at the MCMWTC has contributed to increased community transmission outside of the Marine Corps community in Mono County, despite some increase in unassociated cases.” But is that true? And will it remain true? There appears to be some validity to the concerns of children being potentially exposed to COVID-19 being expressed by some parents in the towns of Coleville, Walker, and Bridgeport.
Reportedly the numbers of positive COVID-19 have exploded at the Marine Mountain Warfare Training Center to well over one hundred cases over the past several weeks (since October 21) and appears to continue to climb. There is also information that has been brought to the attention of Sierra Wave from sources familiar with the camp that there may be more to this story. Some are questioning the lack of safety protocols being practiced by the camp to prevent the contagion, and others have claimed a cavalier attitude of camp commander towards the pandemic protocols, which only invited just what happened at the camp, and contributed to its rapid spread among the troops.
Sierra Wave News reached out to ESUSD Superintendent, Heidi Torix, regarding the rumor that a student in the district may have tested positive for the Covid-19 virus, which is contrary to what was said in Mono Health Department’s press release.
This is the superintendent’s response:
Antelope Elementary School is part of the Eastern Sierra Unified School District in northern Mono County.
“Hi Charles. I was notified by the health department that there is a concerning case (1) at Antelope Elementary School. We immediately made the decision to close the school for in-seat instruction due to possible exposure to students and staff in that cohort. Because of sibling connections, I decided to close Coleville High School and Bridgeport Elementary School (Bridgeport high school students attend CHS). Closing the high school and BES was a precautionary decision, not a direct order from the health department. We have no reason to believe there is a great spread of the virus, but the safety of our students and staff always comes first. I would also like to clarify that this closure has no relation to the cases on the military base. We are hopeful that we will be re-opening after the Thanksgiving break. Let me know if you’d like further information.“–Heidi Torix, Superintendent, ESUSD
Sierra Wave News will continue to monitor this situation and keep our readers and listeners informed of any changes. If you would like to share any information that you might have on this or any story, please send an email to Sierra Wave News, Attn. News Director Charles James, at [email protected], or call or send a text at (760) 920-4991.
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I would like to know, how many people have been hospitalized. That’s the number we should care about. This virus will always be with us, we need to learn to live with it. Meaning, people that might actually end up in the hospital because of the Rona, stay home and stay safe.
And Marines are tough sons of b… I
https://public.tableau.com/views/COVID-19HospitalsDashboard/Hospitals?:embed=y&:showVizHome=no
@Stacy Corless, Perhaps Sierra Wave could not get leadership at the MWTC to give an interview. I called Lt. Col Adrian Arnold wanting to get an interview and he has yet to get back to me. SO many questions that need to be answered about this ‘outbreak’.
@Eastern Sierra Resident. You should know that there is no conclusive evidence that can prove asymptomatic spread of Covid-19. It sounds as if you are shaming Ms Corless about not being more informative to the community about Covid-19.. that is something I agree with. For example all but one Mono County official has acknowledged the Center for Disease Controls probability of survival by age group from Covid-19. Did you know according to the CDC(the same source Mono County Officials use) almost everyone under the age of 70 has a greater than 99% chance to survive Covid-19? Yet they don’t want to emphasize that data.. They appear to have an agenda and part of that agenda is keeping people afraid of the invisible enemy.
@Sugarmags I understand your frustration about positive tests in our community.. however a positive test does not equate infection with Covid-19. The good news is Covid-19 is rarely deadly to most people.. over half the supposed covid-19 deaths are linked to elderly people with comorbidities in nursing homes. An Interesting fact you might not know about is Influenza A and Influenza B are both nearly non existent since Covid-19.. it appears they only test for Covid-19 now.
Did you know there is financial incentive for hospitals to get “positive” Covid-19 cases?
“During a television interview, a Minnesota state senator said it was $13,000 for someone admitted with COVID-19, and $39,000 if they were placed on a ventilator.”
Meanwhile, many of our hospitals are facing serious financial hardships and furloughing nurses and staff.
Sierra did reach out to the Marine media contact. The information provided us from a Mono County Supervisor came from the MCMWTC’s executive officer who wrote:
“Media inquiries should be directed to the Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command Strategic Communications office.
The Point of Contact is Captain Nichole Plymale, who is cc’ed on this email. Her phone number is 760 401-0191.”
Captain Plymale did not respond to our media inquiry for an interview with the Camp C.O.
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
First: there are numerous articles confirming asymptomatic spread of Covid. Here are abstracts from just two:
First, “Temporal dynamics in viral shedding and transmissibility of COVID-19” He X, Lau EHY, Wu P, Deng X, Wang J, Hao X, Lau YC, Wong JY, Guan Y, Tan X, Mo X, Chen Y, Liao B, Chen W, Hu F, Zhang Q, Zhong M, Wu Y, Zhao L, Zhang F, Cowling BJ, Li F, Leung GM.
Nat Med. 2020;26(5):672. Epub 2020 Apr 15.
“We report temporal patterns of viral shedding in 94 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 and modeled COVID-19 infectiousness profiles from a separate sample of 77 infector-infectee transmission pairs. We observed the highest viral load in throat swabs at the time of symptom onset, and inferred that infectiousness peaked on or before symptom onset. We estimated that 44% (95% confidence interval, 25-69%) of secondary cases were infected during the index cases’ presymptomatic stage, in settings with substantial household clustering, active case finding and quarantine outside the home. Disease control measures should be adjusted to account for probable substantial presymptomatic transmission.”
Next, “Evidence Supporting Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 While Presymptomatic or Asymptomatic.” Furukawa NW, Brooks JT, Sobel J.
Emerg Infect Dis. 2020;26(7) Epub 2020 Jun 21.
“Recent epidemiologic, virologic, and modeling reports support the possibility of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission from persons who are presymptomatic (SARS-CoV-2 detected before symptom onset) or asymptomatic (SARS-CoV-2 detected but symptoms never develop). SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the absence of symptoms reinforces the value of measures that prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2 by infected persons who may not exhibit illness despite being infectious. Critical knowledge gaps include the relative incidence of asymptomatic and symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, the public health interventions that prevent asymptomatic transmission, and the question of whether asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection confers protective immunity.”
You can do a PubMed search for more.
Next: Flu A/B have been “non-existent since Covid 19” because Flu A/B occurs in the northern hemisphere predominantly during the months November – March. Testing for Flu A/B and Covid 19 is CURRENTLY being performed with ONE nasopharyngeal swab.
Next: there is no financial “incentive” to diagnose Covid 19. The only reason a hospital will be reimbursed more money for a patient admitted off a ventilator vs on a ventilator is because there are more costs involved with the latter. This is true for any illness not just Covid.
@Stop non-essential Travel, I am suprised to see someone respond to my comment here. So I see you kind of broke down some of my statements and tried to provide some studies to back up why you think I have no idea what I am talking about. Interesting that you decided not to address the fact that the CDC says that pretty much everyone under 70 has a greater than 99% chance to survive Covid-19. One could argue that fact alone makes it kind of stupid to even debate further science behind Covid-19. You know since that kind of highlights its really not that big of a deal. But I will just for the sake of it, respond to what you said and cited.
So you cited an article that was published “Temporal dynamics in viral shedding and transmissibility of COVID-19”
I am well aware of this article that was produced by Chinese scientists. Given that China is a Communist country ruled by the CCP, I tend to take any information that comes out of that country or its native born citizens which are controlled by the CCP, with a bit of skepticism. Yes I am aware of some follow up studies on this study by other countries. That being said let me break the study down for you since you seem to be confusing asymptomatic spread and presymptomatic spread.
It says it right there in their Abstract, “We observed the highest viral load in throat swabs at the time of symptom onset, and inferred that infectiousness peaked on or before symptom onset”
That is called presymptomatic. There is no conclusive evidence that can link people with No symptoms, who never develop symptoms(Asymptomatic) with spreading the disease. Even those pushing that narrative, claim it is uncommon at best.
The following article you cited “Evidence Supporting Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 While presymptomatic or Asymptomatic”
This article again combines presymptomatic and asymptomatic in one study, when really they should be separate studies. But again the article you cited tells you its still not conclusive.
“Critical knowledge gaps include the relative incidence of asymptomatic and symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, the public health interventions that prevent asymptomatic transmission, and the question of whether asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection confers protective immunity.”
Critical knowledge gaps include the relative incidence of asymptomatic and sympotmatic SARS-COV-2 indection. Translation- we don’t know.
And when you said, Next: Flu A/B have been “non-existent since Covid 19” because Flu A/B occurs in the northern hemisphere predominantly during the months November – March. Testing for Flu A/B and Covid 19 is CURRENTLY being performed with ONE nasopharyngeal swab.
Just an FYI, the southern hemisphere already demonstrated an unusually low rate of Influenza.
Well perhaps there is and will be tests that will test for Influenza A and B and Covid-19, that is simply not what is happening. All testing that is done by the Department of health, Project Baseline by Verily etc is for Covid-19 only. If you want to get tested for Influenza A or B you have to go to your doctor/care facility. Oh and when you do that you have to pay for the test and doctor visit, (financial incentive for people to go get tested for Covid-19 instead, hint hint).
And as far as the financial incentive goes, Ill just agree to disagree. Covid-19 despite having nearly identical symptoms to Influenza gets a whole lot more $$.
Thanks for the response.
Dear William,
That whooshing sound was my entire point flying way over your head. Here – let me walk you through it. I know it can be real hard to read and understand when you have your own thoughts you’d rather think but maybe if you sit still for a minute and take a few deep breaths to calm and quiet your mind you can increase your attention span!
Ms Corless thinks Sierra Wave was “irresponsible” for reporting this outbreak at the MWTC. I believe any accusation of “irresponsibility” should be delivered directly to the Marine Corps for the reasons I spelled out in my previous post.
“Did you know according to the CDC(the same source Mono County Officials use) almost everyone under the age of 70 has a greater than 99% chance to survive Covid-19? Yet they don’t want to emphasize that data.. They appear to have an agenda and part of that agenda is keeping people afraid of the invisible enemy.”
And: “You should know that there is no conclusive evidence that can prove asymptomatic spread of Covid-19. ”
I know it is probably beyond your ability to comprehend but there are several scientific studies proving the asymptomatic spread of Covid as another poster already pointed out. And your CDC quote about 99% survival rate is nowhere to be found. I suspect you wiped it off on some tissue and flushed it down the toilet.
I just heard that high school football will be starting up soon….I’m so dismayed to hear this. Look what happened in college football, lots of players testing positive and coaches. That is the last thing I want to see in our communities!
It seems quite irresponsible of Sierra Wave to editorialize about this without interviewing Mountain Warfare Training Center leaders. I’d encourage all those interested to hear from MWTC leaders directly by watching the 11/5 Mono County/Town of Mammoth Lakes Community Conversation–there is an update from MWTC toward the beginning.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoSw-TkZvWo
I watched the video. Some members of this group were left behind because of positive tests but they did not test anyone who was not symptomatic before shipping the rest of the group out here to Pickle Meadows. Hello? Asymptomatic spread is not new news!
So there was an “official” press release on Nov. 3 (in spite of the local rumor mill) but this outbreak has been going on since Oct 21? And you, Ms Corless, choose to point the finger at Sierra Wave for being “irresponsible”?
And I think we need to talk about asymptomatic spread again. And the delay in getting test results. And support staff on the base. And civilians who work on the base and live in surrounding communities. I do not for a minute believe that this is or can be contained on the base.
The Marines thought they could contain the Cannon Fire too. They did not call for help until it was out of control. They also never told the community (which was in greater danger than during the recent Slink fire) the entire story as had been promised. When the people in charge choose keep secrets we have nothing more than rumor and articles like this one.
Thank you, Charles.