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More than 5,200 cases of Covid have been detected among K-12 students in Los Angeles County over the past two weeks, a number the public health director called ‘sobering’ today. hui. According to figures released by the county on Wednesday, 5,207 infections were identified among students in the county between August 15 and 29 – as well as 729 cases among school staff.
But the director of public health and the county school principal have expressed confidence in the security measures taken on campuses.
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said cases are largely detected through aggressive routine drug testing, especially in the Unified School District of Los Angeles, which now accounts for nearly two-thirds of all Covid tests carried out in the county.
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“We average about 500 cases per day (among college students) in LA County,” she said. “Most of these cases are identified through routine screening, and these are really people who are in fact asymptomatic. So this is a sobering figure 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 … to go ahead and spread this virus. “
According to LA Public Health, “Most school sites with cases, 849 in total, reported only one case. However, 193 LAUSD and 105 other school sites reported two cases, and 621 LAUSD and 94 other school sites reported three or more cases. Each school case identified requires the student or staff member to self-isolate at home for 10 days. In addition, any identified unvaccinated close contacts should be quarantined. Thus, a case may remove more than one student from the school.
“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.”
Ferrer noted that during her visits to school campuses, she found “a lot of attention to detail on creating security.”
Debra Duardo, superintendent of the county education office, said that despite the thousands of cases detected, 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 to make sure our schools are as safe as possible and that we are preventing the spread of Covid in our schools. “
Of the 5,200 cases among LA students over the past two weeks, she said, “When there are high infection rates in communities, you’re going to see some entering our schools, but we don’t. We are not seeing a high spread in schools, and so we are very satisfied with the work done by our teachers and administrators and all school staff to follow all the strategies.
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.
The county reported an unusually high 389 new Covid deaths on Wednesday, bringing the cumulative death toll throughout the pandemic to 25,322. According to the county public health department, 90% of all deaths due COVID during the pandemic – and 90% since early March 2021 – have involved people with at least one underlying health problem. The most common conditions were hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. The county recorded an additional 2,277 Covid infections on Wednesday.
Statewide, there have been a shocking 23,387 newly reported confirmed cases. State officials noted that that number includes more than 10,000 cases that have been delayed by the Kaiser Permanente of Northern California. Cases have averaged between 10,000 and 13,000 recently.
Cases are increasing widely among unvaccinated populations. For the week of August 15 to August 21, the 7-day average case rate among unvaccinated Californians 16 years of age or older is 61.55 per 100,000 per day, while the 7-day average case rate in vaccinated Californians aged 16 or older is only 10.77 per 100,000 per day. This puts the case rate among the unvaccinated at around 571% than among those who are vaccinated.
According to the state, there were 1,673 Covid-positive patients in LA County hospitals today, including 446 people in intensive care. That was down from Tuesday, when there were 1,699 people hospitalized for COVID and 448 in intensive care.
The mobile daily average rate of people testing positive for the virus in Los Angeles County was 2.5% on Tuesday, down from 2.9% a week ago. Ferrer attributed the recent drop in part to a massive increase in drug tests performed in schools and businesses.
Of all eligible county residents aged 12 and older, 65% are fully immunized, while 74% have received at least one dose. Of course, children under the age of 12 – who make up about 13% of the state’s population – are not eligible for the vaccine and are not included in these numbers, so the vaccination rate for all county residents is lower.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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