A Crawford High School student has tested positive for COVID-19, leading the school to cancel football and volleyball games for the next two weeks and to send home 18 students, mainly 7th-12th graders, under quarantine for 14 days. 

     Superintendent Mo Hanks says masks are mandatory for everyone on campus for at least the next two weeks with a decision on whether to extend the requirement to be made near the end of the current quarantine depending on changes in numbers.

     Hanks says the students sent home under quarantine were given computers and will be taught through the Google Classroom program similar to what was done for the spring semester.

     The Panhandle Public Health District COVID-19 dashboard shows 10 new cases and no new recoveries in Dawes County, pushing the numbers to 157 total cases, 134 recoveries, and 23 active cases to 23. 

      Chadron State College added 1 new case, an employee, giving the school 3 active cases – one student and 2 staffers – with the total number of positives during pandemic rising to 54 – 45 of them students. 

   The Chadron Public Schools remain with all 15 of its positive cases recovered, but the number of students or staff in quarantine rose from 7 to 10

     Panhandle Unified Command reported 2 deaths, both in Scottsbluff County, and 22 new cases today in the Panhandle, resulting in 150 active cases, 18 more than Wednesday, including 13 who are hospitalized. 

  . There have now been 1,029 positive cases, 868 recoveries, and 11 in the Panhandle since the start of the pandemic. 

      Close contact with another positive case is responsible for 562 of the cases with 432 listed as community spread, meaning contact tracing could not pinpoint a specific source of the infection. Another 9 cases are simply listed as of unknown origin.

COVID Cancels Crawford/Sioux County Football & Volleyball Games

The Crawford and Sioux County football and volleyball games scheduled for Friday have been cancelled according to a statement from Crawford activities director Rick Barry.

Friday was to include a football game at 2:00 pm, followed by a volleyball game at 4:30.

In a phone interview with Barry on Thursday afternoon, he also noted that next week’s football game against Cody-Kilgore has also been cancelled.