Coronavirus closes Diamond Valley School for second time in three months

For the second time in three months, Diamond Valley School was ordered closed after around 60 percent of the students, staff and teachers were reported to be in isolation or quarantine due to the coronavirus.

The school that serves eastern Alpine County will reopen on Feb. 8, according to the health department.

Douglas County is up to 76 deaths, according to the Nevada Health Response, with two of those occurring since the beginning of the year.

The county is up to 45 new confirmed cases a day with eight confirmed and suspected cases in the hospital.

Douglas County remains at high risk of transmission and is under a state mask mandate requiring residents and visitors to wear masks regardless of vaccination status, the state said on Tuesday.

Students in class are not required to wear masks, but adults are, including at public meetings when not eating or drinking.

Douglas County School Superintendent Keith Lewis said the district has required those attending trustee meetings wear masks.

“At the January meeting, a citizen was asked to comply with the mask mandate,” Lewis said. “He proceeded to create a disruption by yelling at the board. We contacted dispatch and they remove the citizen from the meeting, at which time he disrupted the meeting again.”

The man could be heard yelling on the district’s feed on Jan. 12 yelling about masks while the board was electing its new officers.

Lewis said the district asked the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office to notice the man that he would be charged with trespassing if he comes back on school property.

In October, a woman who attended several meetings without a mask, was asked several times to put on a mask and refused.

While Sheriff Dan Coverley said his office isn’t enforcing the mask mandate, the Judicial and Law Enforcement Center illustrates issues with Douglas County’s mask mandate. The courts upstairs are requiring masks, while the sheriff’s office downstairs does not.

Like the rest of the state, stores have signs requiring masks but enforcement is difficult and most businesses have given up, if they were enforcing them at all.