Wisconsin parents knowingly sending COVID-infected kids to school, officials say

Parents in Wisconsin are knowingly sending their kids to school while infected with COVID-19 or experiencing symptoms, health officials said.

Kirsten Johnson, the director of the Washington-Ozaukee Public Health Department, said this week there have been multiple cases of parents lying about their child being infected with the virus, news station WISN reported.

“Something that happened and continued to happen, but happened on the first day of school, which I never in my wildest dreams imagined it would happen, is people sent their known positive kids to school,” Johnson said.

She said that parents are also neglecting to get symptomatic children tested for the virus.

“What’s also happening, again not in my wildest dreams thought this would happen, is kids become symptomatic, and parents are refusing to test them because they don’t want to quarantine their siblings,” she said.

In the two counties, there are more than two dozen schools where there’s at least one student or staffer positive for the virus, according to figures from the health department’s tracker.

Washington County Board Chairman Don Kriefall said he’s concerned that such behavior will force schools to be shut down.

“We’re not going to be able to keep our schools open… just a few parents that are irresponsible are going to affect the entire school district,” he said.

However, according to new data from Brown University’s National COVID-19 School Response Data Dashboard, less than 1 percent of teachers and students have become infected with COVID-19 nationwide since classes began.

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