The video above is a good overview on the latest progress of the global pandemic. I recommend The Economist podcast “The Jab” which reports on COVID-19. The good news is the vaccines are resistant to the many current variants. The bad news is more variants may emerge while the virus spreads through large unvaccinated populations.
As you can see in the graph above from the September 30 UN Situation Report on Uzbekistan and COVID-19, cases are dropping in the country and Tashkent. This bears out in our school community as we completed the second consecutive week with no student or employee cases reported. Our next community Rapid Antigen Testing will be October 25th where we will get more data.
We continue to gather vaccination data from our community. As you can see in the pie charts below, with 72% of our secondary school (grades 6-12) reporting, 26.3% are vaccinated. In regards to the parents, 88% are fully vaccinated with about half completing the survey. I would think these two numbers are accurate percentages for both populations, with the older students probably having a higher percentage than younger students in the secondary school.
TIS Secondary Survey as of October 1 
TIS Parent Survey as of October 1
The TIS COVID Response Team is currently planning for loosening restrictions as transmission rates drop in the city. We want to continue to offer the basics of on-campus teaching and learning and our current level of cocurricular activities so we are taking a thoughtful, measured approach. The Team will be prioritizing the following:
- Consider dropping the use of masks for our youngest students and masks outdoors.
- Mixing of more cohorts in recreation times, cocurricular activities and school-wide assemblies and events.
- Develop guidelines for allowing parents to come on campus more often.
TIS Director's Blog 
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