Eight Northland school buildings were put on the Minnesota Department of Health's outbreak list Thursday.
A school building is put on the list if it reports five or more confirmed cases of COVID-19 in students or staff who were in a building while infectious during a two-week reporting period. The building is removed after 28 days of no new positive tests.
Buildings added to the list Thursday were:
Cloquet Middle School in Cloquet.
Cloquet High School in Cloquet.
Winterquist Elementary School in Esko.
Cherry School (secondary) in Iron.
Lincoln Elementary School in Hibbing.
Hibbing High School in Hibbing.
Aitkin High School in Aitkin.
Rippleside Elementary School in Aitkin.
Hibbing Public Schools began two weeks of distance learning Monday. Esko Public Schools began distance learning Monday as well. Esko schools have had 16 total COVID cases since the beginning of the school year.
Cloquet Public Schools began distance learning Nov. 9. The district has had a total of 33 COVID-19 cases since the start of the school year.
Aitkin High School switched to distance learning Nov. 9-25 and Rippleside Elementary School will switch to distance learning Monday for fourth through sixth grades. K-3 will continue in-person learning.
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As of Thursday, 74 new school buildings were added to the list and one was removed for a total of 185 on the list.
There were 1,687 more positive COVID-19 cases in schools statewide Nov. 8-15, with 745 new cases among staff and 942 new cases among students. Statewide, 180 more school buildings reported at least one new case of COVID-19.
From Nov. 1-15, 486 school buildings reported one confirmed case of COVID-19, 460 reported two to four confirmed cases and 111 reported more than five.
The 14-day case rate per 10,000 residents released by the Minnesota Department of Health for all of St. Louis County from Oct. 25 through Nov. 7 was 91.11. St. Louis County Public Health reported the Duluth area was 104.9 for the same time period, and 72.8 in Central/South St. Louis County and 58.2 for Northern St. Louis County.
The 14-day case rates per 10,000 residents among other counties from Oct. 25 through Nov. 7:
130.73 in Aitkin County.
144.63 in Carlton County.
41.42 in Cook County.
88.71 in Itasca County.
69.07 in Lake County.
The most recent 14-day case rates per 10,000 residents in Northland counties, according to News Tribune calculations:
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173.28 in Aitkin County.
158.90 in Carlton County.
34.79 in Cook County.
121.23 in Itasca County.
95.94 in Lake County.
112.84 in St. Louis County.
