Oklahoma High School Student Attends Class Despite Knowledge Of Being COVID-19 Positive, Officials Reveal

A high school student in Oklahoma attended class despite testing positive for COVID-19, officials revealed.

The student went to Westmoore High School, situated south of Oklahoma City, school district officials said. They added the student was asymptomatic and, therefore, thought it was okay to attend in-person classes, NBC News reported.

District officials further told KFOR, a local news outlet affiliated with NBC, the student thought "since they were asymptomatic ... they did not need to quarantine for the full 14-day-period." As of Sunday, requests for comment made to the Moore Public School District went unanswered.

The school, however, sent a letter to parents informing them nurses at the institution have completed the tracing process, which will help them identify students and personnel who may have been exposed to the virus by coming in close contact with the infected person. The identity of the student was established after the school received an anonymous tip on the first day of classes Thursday, Aug. 13, KFOR reported.

The parents of the student told school officials they "miscalculated" the end of the quarantine period of their child and believed it was safe for the student to attend classes. In a news update, Moore officials revealed another student was also found COVID-19 positive and 22 other children who came into contact with the two coronavirus-positive students are now on quarantine.

The school's spokesperson, Dawn Jones, told the local news outlet Moore is doing everything in its power to protect and defend their students and personnel. "I don't know why people do things, why they make certain decisions, what they know to be true, and inform us of," Jones told KFOR.

This news comes as officials of another academy, the Oklahoma State University, revealed 23 Pi Beta Phi sorority members tested positive for the coronavirus infection, The Herald reported. The news outlet also said of the 23 infected members, only one person had any symptoms.

At present, the entire Pi Beta Phi sorority chapter is on quarantine or isolation. Payne County Health Department is now in the process of tracing people who came into close contact with the infected members. At the time of writing this article, Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center showed the state of Oklahoma has 48,342 confirmed COVID-19 cases with 661 fatalities as of Sunday.