The Malheur County Health Department (MCHD) has worked closely with the Nyssa School District and the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to clarify the numbers reported this week in the OHA Weekly Report. There has been confusion because the numbers did not align with the number of cases we had been tracing. The OHA provided explanation that the number of cases isn’t necessarily individual people because it is the number of staff associated per school who test positive. For example, if someone works in more than one school building and tests positive, they will be listed in both school case reports. This happened for four of the staff attributed to the Middle School and High School. The following is what was reported by OHA:

• Nyssa High School: 1 student, 5 staff/volunteers
• Nyssa Middle School: 0 students, 4 staff/volunteers
• Nyssa Elementary School: 1 student, 1 staff/volunteer

For the number of individual cases, the report would be the following:

• Nyssa High School: 1 student, 4 staff/volunteers
• Nyssa Middle School: 0 students, 1 staff/volunteers
• Nyssa Elementary School: 1 student, 1 staff/volunteer

There are eight people with positive COVID-19 cases in the last 28 days connected to the Nyssa School District. Three of the staff are associated to a workplace outbreak and had no student contact. The other cases have been investigated and it was identified that they contracted COVID-19 from outside of the school. All cases are isolating and all contacts have been quarantined and have been individually contacted to encourage testing at the Nyssa COVID-19 Testing Event on Monday, October 12^th.  

MCHD and the Nyssa School District have been working tirelessly to follow protocols and maintain clear communication. We appreciate the explanation from the OHA and hope this clarifies the reporting.