Even with the highly contagious Delta variant still widespread, the full reopening of Los Angeles County schools appears to have gone off without any major public health problems.
The county is seeing significant declines in COVID-19 cases overall. But the drops among kids are particularly encouraging, given that roughly 1.5 million of them are back on campus, along with close to 200,000 school employees.
Since the start of the academic year, close to 8,000 cases have been reported among students and about 1,200 among staff at K-12 schools countywide. That doesn't mean they were infected at school. In fact, the data indicate there is not much on-campus transmission taking place. Only eight outbreaks were reported last week.
"Given the massive testing of asymptomatic individuals at schools, this very low rate of infection affirms that safety that’s provided to students and staff on their campuses," said Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.
The department’s figures showed that only 0.5 percent of the student body and 0.7 percent of staff have become infected since school districts reopened.
Ferrer said because of "relatively low transmission [levels] at schools," the department is relaxing quarantine rules for students.
Schools can now choose to allow modified quarantines where an unvaccinated student who has been exposed to someone with COVID-19 on campus to keep attending classes if both were masked up at the time and the close contact has no symptoms. The exposed student would still have their activities outside of the classroom restricted.
A modified quarantine will not be allowed when there's an outbreak.
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