The FUHSD has seen a large decline in COVID-19 cases this year and has decided to stop its COVID Weekly Case Communication emails for each school.

This news comes as FHS is almost entirely back to normal this year. There is no longer a mask mandate for students, and school events like the Watermelon Run, the Homecoming dance and indoor rallies in the gym have returned. 

On October 14, an email was sent out to the FHS community from Principal Bryan Emmert. Besides being the regular COVID weekly case communication email (there had been one case of COVID-19 from the previous week), it also stated that it would be the last of its kind. The email also repeated the information that there would continue to be a community testing site and that each of the school sites would provide rapid tests. 

Santa Clara County data has also seen a steady decline with the weekly total dropping from 1,760 on August 23, down to 1,220 on October 20, according to data from the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health. 

The low amount of COVID-19 cases is very promising. During the 2021-2022 school year, cases at FHS started out relatively low with only 14 confirmed cases up through November 22. In early January, this number jumped to 99, then to 183 on January 12. At this point the school switched to counting the weekly cases instead of adding up the total number. 

While COVID rates are down compared to last spring, they are still not quite as low as they were at the same time last year. Since there was a large increase in cases during holiday break last year (most likely due to Holiday travel and the new Omicron variant), care still needs to be taken around COVID-19.