A few weeks ago, a new tiered system was put in place by Indian River County school officials to monitor the COVID-19 cases for each school.

Superintendent Dr. David Moore recently told Sebastian Daily that the number of COVID-19 cases is down at local schools. That’s good news for students and parents.

Sebastian River High School is currently in the “yellow” category, which is the lowest tier. “Yellow” means the school has 1-2 percent COVID cases.

For the yellow category, face coverings are highly recommended for students indoors only when physical distancing is not possible and on school transportation. Other measures include that all students and staff practice regular hand washing or sanitizing, maximize social distancing, and all classroom spaces are disinfected each night.

Also, under the yellow category, a student or staff member must remain home with symptoms of illness or when waiting on a COVID-19 test result.

The other categories are orange and red. Vero Beach High School is currently in the orange category.

As far as students wearing masks, all parents can still opt-out, and Dr. Moore said that students and parents are beginning to feel a sense of normalcy for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Sebastian Daily also spoke with a few nurses at Cleveland Clinic Indian River County, and they also say COVID-19 cases are down.

A couple of months ago, the hospital had to open up another floor just for COVID patients, which has returned to normal. Also, the number of patients on ventilators has dropped 50 percent.

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