5,207 confirmed COVID cases among K-12 students in Los Angeles County in past 2 weeks

LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Health officials said on Wednesday that 5,207 cases of COVID-19 had been detected among K-12 students in Los Angeles County in the past two weeks, a number which County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer described as “sobering.”

Ferrer said cases are largely detected through aggressive routine drug testing, particularly in the Los Angeles Unified School District, which now accounts for nearly two-thirds of all COVID tests performed in the county.

“We average about 500 cases per day (among college students) in LA County,” she said. “The vast majority of these cases are identified by routine screening, and these are really people who are in fact asymptomatic. So this is a sobering number because it is large, but it is actually useful to be able to identify people infected with COVID before they show symptoms and before they have a lot of opportunities … d ‘go ahead and spread this virus. “

Ferrer said the large number of cases also means more work for the county as all patients must be interviewed so their close contacts can be identified and referred to quarantine.

“The sobering news for all of us is that with high rates of community transmission… we have a number of people in our school community who test positive and who may in fact infect others,” he said. she declared. “We need to act quickly to prevent the kind of transmission in schools that will create very large epidemics, which has been done successfully since reopening last fall.”

Officials monitor trend of COVID cases in unvaccinated children as LA County sees 14 school outbreaks

Debra Duardo, superintendent of the county education office, said the mitigation strategies in schools “have been very effective.”

“I have visited schools every day, and the children and adults do a great job wearing their masks, staying away from each other, following all the protocols, disinfecting themselves,” she said. declared. “I think we are doing everything we can do to make sure our schools are as safe as possible and that we are preventing the spread of COVID in our schools.”

Ferrer said more outbreaks were likely as schools remained open, and she noted that about half of outbreaks involved school sports. The most common factors that contributed to the outbreaks were mask failure, lack of physical distancing indoors and outdoors, and lack of adequate ventilation.

Ferrer also noted an increase in case rates among children aged 5 to 11, who are not eligible for vaccinations. From August 14 to 21, this age group saw the number of cases increase by 50%, while over the past week, the group saw another 9% increase, despite a drop in cases among children from 0 to 4 years old and from 12 to 17 years old.

Of all eligible county residents aged 12 and older, 65% are fully immunized, while 74% have received at least one dose. Ferrer said 91% to 92% of people who receive a first dose also receive their second dose on time, bodes well for an improvement in the county’s vaccination rate in the coming weeks.

As of August 22, only 50% of black residents of Los Angeles County had received at least one dose, with the lowest percentages among those aged 12 to 29. Latino / A residents have a rate of 59%, compared to 69% of White residents and 79% of Asians.