The City of Fishers Health Department has released a community-wide rating scale to assist in communicating with residents the risk of COVID-19 transmission in the community.
Dr. Indy Lane, chief medical director, and Monica Heltz, public health director, released the scale Friday with an initial rating of Level 2 – Moderate Risk (Yellow), which allows for in-person instruction at all Fishers schools provided that appropriate mitigation steps are taken.
Lane
“The novelty of the COVID-19 virus means we are constantly getting new peer-reviewed studies that can continue to guide our response to this disease,” Dr. Lane said. “We know more about this virus today than in March and with that, I am confident we can manage the spread of the virus in our community through these metrics. By creating a rating scale, we can help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and better understand or predict our community risk to recommend action. This ultimately gives our residents the power and knowledge to make the best decisions for themselves, based on their own risk factors.”
The Fishers Health Department presented specific guidance to Hamilton Southeastern Schools’ Board of Trustees Friday morning during a work session. The separate School Mitigation and Activity guidance follows a similar rating scale the District may use to communicate to teachers, staff, parents and students for building-specific risk. Fishers-based private schools may choose to follow these metrics to guide their own decision-making.
The rankings for the community can be used to drive decision making for HSE Schools and other area private schools, but they should not be interpreted as orders to the schools. Only the schools can best determine how to implement these recommendations into the school setting.
The Fishers Health Department releases daily COVID-19 video updates to provide the latest data and information to residents. These videos are available on the Department’s Facebook and Twitter pages as well as the City of Fishers YouTube channel, which can be accessed via this link.
Click here for more information on the risk rating and Friday’s presentation.