LEWISTON, Minn. – The Lewiston-Altura School District, which switched to total on-line learning last week, told parents that the switch was made partly because of a rising 14-day case rate. The district pointed too to the fact that 27% of the county’s new cases between October 21 and October 28 were in the Lewiston zip code and 8% in the Altura zip code. The percentage was significantly more than previous weeks. In the schools, parents were told, there had been two recent close contact situations. As a result, 33 students and two staff members went into in quarantine, 14 of them from elementary schools and 19 from the high school.

Pandemic toll

Since the pandemic began in February, the Lewiston-Altura schools have had 83 staff members and students quarantined and then able to return to the schools. Fifty-four of these cases were at the high school.