Data shows SF schools have avoided COVID outbreaks so far, unlike the rest of the nation

Only five cases of COVID transmission at school have been recorded since San Francisco schools reopened last month, and for now, SF schools are preventing the Delta variant nightmare from being seen elsewhere in the country. .

President Biden just appeared on national television to announce new vaccination mandates for all employers with more than 100 employees. It comes after a sharp return from COVID in August, and the nation is again seeing around 1,500 Americans every day because of the virus. The return to school has been largely disastrous on this front; CNN reports that COVID-19 child hospitalizations reached an all-time high on Wednesday, and in Florida (of course), NPR points out that 13 school workers have died in Miami-Dade County since day one. school.

No such remorse here in San Francisco, however, as the Chronicle reports that no epidemics have occurred in SF schools, now that we are almost a month into the school year. In fact, cases in children have gone down, which is consistent with the drop in cases we’re seeing across the city.

“To date, our data demonstrates that cases among San Francisco residents under the age of 18 have remained low and stable throughout the pandemic and that schools are low-risk environments when appropriate safety protocols are in place. follow-ups, ”the Ministry of Public Health said in an analysis. published Thursday morning. “As of March 2020, there have been a total of 13 pediatric hospitalizations among San Francisco residents in San Francisco hospitals. There are currently no San Francisco children hospitalized for COVID-19. “

Mayor Breed takes to Twitter to brag about this, unsurprisingly, given his damn torpedoes, continue the zeal of the school board to reopen schools as quickly as possible.

But we certainly didn’t know “from the start” that this would turn out well, and the idea that “kids can safely return to learning in person” is an overconfidence at Ron DeSantis’ level that is easily. refuted by epidemics in other districts. The low number of cases is likely due to the city-wide vaccination rate exceptional, and Breed deserves credit for it.

The graph above shows that cases have actually declined across all age groups since the first day of school. And with the norm of an “epidemic” being three or more cases contracted in one school, DPH says that “no outbreaks of COVID-19 have been verified to have occurred in schools in San Francisco (as of September 8) “.

The situation is not entirely rosy. There is an (unofficial) Twitter account called SFUSD Covid cases and data who uses DPH’s COVID-19 dashboard to track cases among SFUSD staff and students. And we have 227 positive cases in total. But according to DPH contact tracing data, “the vast majority of these infections occur outside of schools. “

Likewise, Marin County recently reported this week that it had registered 71 cases in total among schoolchildren, but said the vast majority of those transmissions were occurring outside of school and through activities. extracurricular like sports.

I’m like, “Let’s wait until two weeks after Labor Day before we celebrate anything,” but this data is very encouraging. San Francisco has certainly done something right to get those numbers. It helps that we don’t have a mad governor bent on keeping masks and warrants out of school. And Jesus, let’s hope that’s still the case after Tuesday’s recall election.

Related: An unvaccinated teacher at Marin School has caused a COVID outbreak that has infected more than a dozen students, their siblings and parents [SFist]

Image: Bahn Mi via Wikimedia Commons