Governor Ned Lamont announced the finding of four additional cases of B.1.1.7, commonly known as the U.K. variant of COVID-19, in Connecticut on Monday, Jan. 25. The statewide total is now at eight cases. 

Given that the U.K. variant of COVID-19 is highly transmissible, safety precautions including social distancing, quarantining and mask wearing are necessary. 

“The Connecticut Department of Public Health has warned school districts across the state to be prepared for the possible need to switch to fully remote learning come March because a more contagious viral strain may become more common,” NBC News reported. 

Despite this, Westport elementary and middle schools have returned to full-in person schooling starting Feb. 1. This decision was questioned by many students because of the uncertainty surrounding the U.K. COVID-19 variant.

“I think it might be best to see how our progress with vaccinations goes, along with the way the new variants affect the case count before making the final decision to reopen our schools,” Caitlin Jacob ’24 said. 

Westport Superintendent Thomas Scarice described his reasoning behind the decision to bring the elementary and middle schools students back to school full time. 

“As a community, we are faced with obvious public health obligations to ensure that we are responsibly doing our part as a school system to minimize virus transmission,” Scarice wrote in an email. “However, we are also obligated to balance our public health responsibilities with the perhaps less obvious risks that have impacted our children as a result of the reduction of on-site schooling.”

Both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been slightly less effective against the U.K. coronavirus variant. 

“We are racing to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as we can ahead of what could be this super contagious strain,” Lamont said in the press release.