Elementary schools in LA County could reopen in a few weeks, says Barbara Ferrer

LOS ANGELES (KABC) – Elementary schools in Los Angeles County could be weeks away from reopening if the rates of coronavirus cases continue to decline, the county’s top public health official said on Wednesday.

Director of Public Health Dr. Barbara Ferrer said if the decline continues, the county may be able to reopen elementary schools for limited in-person instruction within weeks.

She said in order for schools to reopen to students from transition kindergarten to grade six, the county must have an average daily new case rate of 25 per 100,000 residents – a threshold set by the state. The county’s current rate is 48 per 100,000 population.

“I think it will take us two to three weeks to reduce that rate, and that assumes everyone continues to do their best, to play by the rules to continue to make sure that the transmission goes down and doesn’t back down. “said Ferrer.

“And the state, with this rate of cases, there are a lot of requirements that schools have to be able to meet if they’re going to reopen while we’re in the purple sector,” she added.

RELATED: LAUSD Pushes Back CDC School Reopening Report

Ferrer added that the next three to four weeks will be crucial for the reopening of schools and the county must do “whatever it takes” to make it happen.

Eyewitness News has contacted the union representing teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District, United Teachers Los Angeles, but has not received a response.

Ferrer’s comment comes as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that with the right mitigation measures, there is a path to low-risk in-person learning.

LAUSD officials are pushing back guidelines. Some local teachers and LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner are uncomfortable going back to in-person learning from this CDC alone.

Beutner said in addition to safety precautions, teachers and staff should get vaccinated before returning to class.

Vaccination efforts continue to hit the road, but California is improving its deployment. After ranking almost last in the nation last week as a percentage of the population who received a vaccine, California is now in 38th place, with around 7% of the population receiving at least one dose.

That’s over 2.7 million doses so far, the most in the country. Almost 58% of the doses sent to our state have been distributed.

While hospitalizations in LA County are still high, they are declining. Ferrer warned that deaths from COVID-19 were still on the rise and the county still had a long way to go.

City News Service contributed to this report.