The state upgraded Somerset County’s school safety rating Friday after a month of labeling schools in the county unsafe to be open for full-time, in-person education.
That means Somerset County is labeled green and Androscoggin, Oxford and York counties are currently designated a cautionary yellow under the color-coded safety rating system the Maine Department of Education updates every Friday.
That’s down from four Maine counties that were labeled “yellow” because of higher COVID-19 case numbers. The Maine Department of Education recommends a combination of remote and in-person learning for schools in yellow counties.
The state is also watching Cumberland and Kennebec counties closely after they reported high rates of COVID-19 cases in the last two weeks, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Last Friday, the state said it will watch Penobscot County this week for a potential downgrade in safety rating, but the county’s green safety rating did not change although school districts across the county had plans in place for a potential yellow designation.
Penobscot County has remained green since the state introduced the color-coded safety rating this summer because of a lower rate of COVID-19 infections compared with the state’s other more populous counties.
Over the last two weeks, it saw 25.96 new COVID-19 cases for every 10,000 residents, down slightly from its rate of 28.26 cases last week.
Oxford County has had the highest rate of cases in the past two weeks, at 43.81 per 10,000 residents, almost double the state average of 26.86.
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