Los Angeles City Councilman Bob Blumenfield called two of the county’s most influential people related to public health and schools before the City Council on Wednesday to answer questions he’s received from many constituents confused and frustrated that schools are still not open.
The answers provided from Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer and Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner differed little from the consistent message both have put forward since campuses first closed back in March: The decisions would be guided by science.
Both recognized that may do little to assuage the anxieties of parents growing tired of teaching their kids at home.
“What we’re trying to do is protect the school community while also responding to the needs of students,” said Beutner before going through a litany of things and money the district has spent to make distance learning easier and ensure that when students do come back, the ability existed to test and isolate people quickly.”
The school district with close to 700,000 students was currently conducting baseline testing of 80,000 children and adults for about $30 each with the purpose being to understand the prevalence of the virus within the school community at the same time training those at the school and families on how to react if there is an outbreak, according to Beutner.
“We are being very deliberate and cautious and understand the consequences of a situation that’s not optimal,” Beutner said. “The challenge is doing it at scale and doing it properly. We have to make sure we have the same health standards at 1,400 schools… Our goal is to provide for a path for all students, and all who work in schools, to be back as soon as we make sure we can do so safely.”
Since schools throughout the county were allowed to reopen in September to the highest needs students, just two outbreaks have occurred, one at Longfellow Elementary School in Compton Unified School District with three confirmed staff and the other at Benjamin Franklin Elementary School Day Care Program in Glendale Unified School District with two confirmed children and two confirmed staff, according to the health department.
For the most part, school campuses in L.A. County have remained closed with certain exceptions. Childcare with appropriate state license or waivers can occur. Teachers and staff can conduct distance learning or essential operations on campus. Youth sports can happen outside without contact.
Classes are also being conducted at more than 1,000 campus for high need students bringing close to 35,000 students and 25,000 staff members on campus. Among them 14% were private schools, 18% charter schools and 68% public. A total of 217 LAUSD schools were included, Ferrer said.
The public health department has received 153 applications so far for a limited number of waivers to open campuses for pre-kindergarten to second grade. Among the applications, 102 came from private schools, 46 from public schools and five from charter schools. Just 29 have been approved so far and only 30 will be approved per week based on needs.
“We need our economy to thrive but we can’t do it at the expenses of keeping our kids out of schools,” Ferrer said.
There remained little more the county could do to reopen campuses to more students, having exhausted now the limits under state guidelines until the county moves out of the most restrictive category, or Tier 1.
The science, which public health officials consistently say they want to rely most, was not looking great as far as the county’s rate of new cases. But there were some promising signs on Wednesday nonetheless that the gradual increases over the past month could be waning as deaths and hospitalizations remained low.
Among one of the positive marks was the rate of new infections as it relates to hospitalizations at 0.95, meaning that for every one person infected slightly fewer than one person could expect to be infected. In recent weeks that number, known as R-nought, has hovered slightly above 1.0.
The number of new cases was now above 1,100 reported per day, though an adjusted rate put the county at of 8.0 per 100,000 people per day because the county tests on average more than others. It’s this stubbornly high case rate that has kept the county from advancing to the next tier and allowing schools to reopen further, triggered when the county’s adjusted case rate falls below 7.0 for at least two weeks.
In another sign of good news, hospitalizations continued to remain below 1,000 for most of September and October, averaging less than 800, now at 755 as of Wednesday. Ferrer said this paradox, in which hospitalization numbers stabilized while the number of cases are increasing, is likely due to three factors.
“Young people are primarily driving new cases, and we know they are less likely to become seriously ill and require hospitalization,” Ferrer said. “Second, the ability of health care providers to offer better treatments is often leading to much shorter lengths of stay. Third is that there is often a lag time in reporting.”
Deaths too have remained low, now at about 13 per day last week, down from a peak of 44 per day on average in July, Ferrer said.
“The decrease in deaths is promising, but we do know that an increase in cases a few weeks later can result in an increase in hospitalizations, which can then result in an increase of people dying,” Ferrer said. “This is why it’s super important we remain vigilant and use every tool we have now to slow the spread of the virus.”
On Wednesday, L.A. County reported another 1,351 new cases and 20 associated deaths bringing to 303,369 the number of people who have tested positive and 7,040 who died from complications related to COVID-19.
Totals reported Wednesday did not include updated numbers from Long Beach and Pasadena, which operate their own health departments.
In Long Beach, another resident has died from coronavirus-related causes, officials announced Wednesday, Oct. 28, bringing the city’s death toll to 258. The city also reported 45 more coronavirus cases. There have been 13,193 cases identified in Long Beach since the pandemic began.
Pasadena reported six additional cases for a total of 2,801; its death toll remained at 129.
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Frustrated by continued school closures, health officials have few answers other than patience - Long Beach Press Telegram
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