By James Hanlon
Leader Staff Writer
A false alarm was posted to Michigan’s coronavirus dashboard and reported by several news outlets. A COVID-19 outbreak at Oxford High School was incorrectly included on the state’s weekly School-Related Outbreak Reporting page on Feb. 8. The table reported an outbreak of two student cases at the school.
“Please be advised we do not have an outbreak at Oxford High School,” Oxford Community Schools said in a district-wide communication Feb. 12. “There was an error in reporting at the Oakland County Health Division (OCHD) and we were mistakenly added to the state K-12 outbreak list. We are working with OCHD to ensure a correction is made to accurately represent our data.”
An outbreak is defined by the state as “two or more COVID-19 cases who may have shared exposure on school grounds and are from different households.” Students or staff who were exposed to COVID-19 outside of school grounds and are not thought to have spread the disease on the school grounds do not count as outbreaks.
The school district reports confirmed active cases, weekly on its website. As of Friday (Feb. 12), there were nine active student cases: two at Oxford Middle School, four at Oxford High School, and three at Oxford Virtual Academy. There was one active staff case at Lakeville Elementary School.
“The cases reported above appear to be unrelated to one another and we have no evidence of in-school transmission of COVID-19 at this time,” the district update stated.
Oxford was taken off the state’s outbreak website on Monday afternoon.