The Old Rochester Regional School District reported nine covid cases on Jan. 3, the most reported at one time since the beginning of the pandemic. 

Of the cases, four are from Rochester Memorial School, three are from Old Hammondtown School and two are from the Old Rochester Regional Junior High School. 

All schools will continue to operate normally following the cases. 

Contact tracing for the cases is ongoing. Close contacts will be notified by their respective Boards of Health, and will be expected to quarantine in accordance with state guidelines. 

The individuals from Rochester Memorial were last in school on Dec. 17 in one case and Dec. 23 in the other three. The individuals from Old Hammondtown and the Junior High were last in school on Dec. 23.

No further information has been released about the positive individuals. 

The new cases, which have brought the district total up to 85, come as covid numbers have dropped in Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester over the past two weeks. But state-level data, which is released weekly on Thursdays, may not yet reflect a potential uptick in cases from the Christmas and New Years holidays. Following Thanksgiving, surges in the Tri-Town were reflected in state data between two and three weeks after the holiday. 

In anticipation of another surge, officials at all levels of government, from Boards of Selectmen to the Center for Disease Control, have advised against travel. 

The cases also come as Mattapoisett schools have adopted a plan to return Kindergarten, first and second grade to full in-person school by mid-January. A similar plan was proposed to the Rochester School Committee, which opted to wait for post-Christmas covid data before deciding whether to return to in-person school.