Pittsburgh Public Schools halts Langley lunch distribution after worker exposed to presumed covid-19 case

Pittsburgh Public Schools said early Wednesday that lunch distribution at Langley in the city’s West End has been discontinued after reports that a staff member was exposed to a presumptive positive case of covid-19.

Grab-and-go meals will instead be available at Emanuel United Methodist Church, 825 Lorenz Avenue, also in the West End.

Langley will be deep-cleaned using the district’s electrostatic machine.

This comes on the heels of Pittsburgh Public Schools closing eight grab-and-go lunch sites because of other employees who were exposed to a confirmed case of covid-19 outside of work, officials said.

The buildings will be sanitized during the closure. They include Arsenal K-5, Arsenal 6-8, Classical Academy, Carmalt PreK-8, Fulton, Grandview, Linden and Schiller.

The district is working to find alternate sites for food distribution.

The Central Administration Building in Oakland and the Greenway Professional Development Center in the West End will also be shut down.

District officials said two employees who travel daily between district facilities were exposed to covid-19 at a non-work event.

Gov. Tom Wolf on March 13 ordered all Pennsylvania K-12 schools to close for at least 10 business days to help thwart the spread of the coronavirus. He said schools are permitted to hand out food to low-income families to help bridge the gap.

In Pennsylvania, 885,000 children, or about half of the state’s students, qualified for the National School Lunch Program, according to Kids Count’s data center.

The closures follow Tuesday’s announcement that Pittsburgh Brookline and Milliones schools will receive deep cleanings after students at the school may have come in contact with the coronavirus.

A relative of students who attend Pittsburgh Brookline is believed to have covid-19, district officials said. A Pittsburgh Milliones student may have been indirectly exposed as well.

Grab-and-go distributions were relocated to the Tree of Life Church for Brookline students. Because of low attendance, the service at Milliones was set to close this Friday.