Prince William Times 11/11/2020

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HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS TO BE STREAMED: Cameras will show games this season. PAGE 16

November 11, 2020 | Vol. 19, No. 46 | www.princewilliamtimes.com | 50¢ Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.

See PrinceWilliamTimes.com for coronavirus updates

Biden, Dems dominate in Prince William By Daniel Berti

Times Staff Writer

PHOTO BY DOUG STROUD

Welcome back to school: Mountain View Elementary School in Haymarket welcomed about 10 kindergarten students back for the first day of in-person instruction on Tuesday, Nov. 10. Desks were separated and students had all their own supplies. Across the school division, about 2,750 kindergarten and 660 pre-K students returned for in-person classes, according to school division officials.

Despite rising COVID numbers, some students return to school By Jill Palermo

Times Staff Writer

Prince William County schools moved forward with a plan this week to bring pre-K and kindergarten students back into school buildings for in-person learning starting Tuesday, Nov. 10, despite current health metrics that show the county to have the highest rate of COVID-19 infections in Northern Virginia. During a Nov. 4 school board meeting, Superintendent Steven Walts told the school board the local health district’s COVID-19 metrics place the school division in the “highest risk” category in one “core” and one “secondary” indicator in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s metric for assessing the risk of re-opening schools.   As of last week, Prince William’s number of new cases per 100,000 residents over the last 14 days – a core indicator of the CDC tool – topped 200, placing it in the “highest risk” category. The same was true for the county’s percent increase in cases over the last seven days, which is a secondary indicator. That number was 10.6%. Anything

over 10% is in the “highest risk” category. The Prince William Health District has had the highest rate of infection among 100,000 residents of any health district in Northern Virginia for the last several days. The county is in the “moderate risk” category in its percent-positivity rate on COVID-19 tests over the last seven days, also a core indicator. The county’s percent-positivity rate was 7.8% as of Monday, Nov. 9. Walts also told the board the school division has had a total of 130 positive COVID-19 cases among students and staff since the school year began Sept. 8, despite having only about 1,200 students attending in person. While some of those cases have required students and staff to quarantine, most have involved those working and learning virtually from home and were not directly connected to a school building. None of the cases have met the Virginia Department of Health’s definition of an “outbreak,” which is two or more cases among unrelated people stemming from exposure in the same place.

See SCHOOLS, page 3

INSIDE Classifieds...........................................20 History................................................10 Lifestyle..............................................12 Obituaries...........................................18

With all but a few votes left to be counted, Virginia appears to have lost its status as a swing state, and Prince William County and the cities of Manassas and Manas- President-elect Joe Biden sas Park have cemented their status as Democratic-voting locales. Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) beat President Donald Trump (R) in the 2020 presidential election by 10 points, 54%-44%, in Virginia, earning a higher share of votes than any Democratic presidential candidate in Virginia since President Franklin Roosevelt took 57% of the vote in 1944. The president-elect’s strongest support came from the commonwealth’s urban areas and from increasingly diverse suburban areas, which have seen a marked Democratic shift during the Trump presidency. See BIDEN, page 5

Prince William pairs cops with counselors

New program gives county a head start on ‘MARCUS’ law By Daniel Berti

Times Staff Writer

Gov. Ralph Northam has signed the Marcus-David Peters Act, a new law that aims to change the way that Virginia law enforcement and first responders react to people experiencing emergency mental health crises. It will require the creation of a statewide crisis response system, dubbed the mental health awareness response and community understanding services, or MARCUS Alert, that is staffed with mental health clinicians to work alongside local law enforcement when responding to mental health and substance abuse-related emergency calls. See MARCUS, page 4

Opinion.................................................9 Public Safety.........................................9 Puzzle Page..........................................8 Real Estate..........................................17 Sports.................................................16

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