Moses Lake School District plans for coronavirus response

MOSES LAKE — Moses Lake School District is working closely with Grant County Health District and has a plan in place in the event the district has to close one or more schools in response to the COVID-19, or coronavirus, outbreak.

“We’re prepared for extreme circumstances,” said Superintendent Josh Meek at a school board meeting Thursday evening. “We’re working with the health district, and if they call for closure, we would do that.”

“We’re not going to violate a health order,” Meek added.

Late Saturday, Gov. Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency in Washington following the discovery of more cases of COVID-19 — the highly infectious coronavirus that emerged out of Wuhan, China, late last year — in Washington and Oregon.

The state of emergency frees up state resources to respond to the outbreak.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 22 confirmed COVID cases in the U.S. as of Saturday — 13 “travel-related” and nine “person-to-person” cases — while 472 people have been tested for with the virus.

The CDC says, as of Saturday, cases have been confirmed in Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Illinois, Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

Meek said MLSD has not received any specific orders from the county health district or from state officials but advised people to wash their hands more thoroughly and monitor any symptoms they might have.

He also pointed people to the Center for Disease Control’s website on coronavirus for more information, which can be found at www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html.

“We have been fielding questions if that (closure) happens to us, what will we do?” Meek asked.

Meek said the district will continue to monitor the situation.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.