LA County introduces modified quarantine options for students in cases with few campuses

Angels — When COVID-19 infection Los Angeles County remains relatively low among students from kindergarten to high school on Thursday, allowing unvaccinated students exposed to the virus to continue attending face-to-face lessons under certain circumstances. Announced the availability of the “Quarantine” system.

An optional system is available to unvaccinated students who have been exposed to an infected person when both are completely masked. Unvaccinated students should also show no signs of infection.

According to County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, unvaccinated students who meet these basic requirements can continue to attend face-to-face classes, but must remain asymptomatic and always wear masks. .. Students must also quarantine at home at all times except while at school.

Students should be tested twice a week during the quarantine period, once within a day or two of exposure, including at least 3 days after exposure. If a student is negative at least 5 days after exposure, the modified quarantine period may end after 7 days.

Feller said School district There is no need to provide modified quarantine, noting that the school must have the necessary resources to implement all its requirements. She acknowledged that it can also be difficult to confirm that exposure occurred if both unvaccinated students and infected individuals were constantly wearing masks.

“It gets complicated when students are doing other activities together,” she said. And it refers to students who are eating together or participating in outdoor activities during the holidays.

The modified quarantine procedure is only available to students, not teachers. This procedure is also not available if the campus is confirmed to have a COVID.

Related: LAUSD currently requires all qualified students to be vaccinated against COVID-19

Most parents want online or hybrid learning for their students.

According to Feller, COVID infections are steadily declining in all childhood age groups, with student campus cases occurring at a rate of about 0.5% in the county. This is only slightly higher than the general county infection rate of 0.4%.

According to county statistics, between August 15 and September 13, 7,995 COVID infections occurred among approximately 1.5 million students in the county. The majority of them, 5,456, occurred among students in the county’s largest and second largest unified school district in Los Angeles.

As of late Thursday afternoon, the county had not yet released its daily COVID-19 case number.

On Wednesday, Feller reported an additional 37 COVID-19 deaths, increasing the total death toll to 25,748. An additional 1,930 cases were identified, with a cumulative total of 1,437,073 cases from the entire pandemic.

As of Wednesday, the average daily rolling rate for people tested positive for the virus in the county had dropped from 3.3% a week ago to 1.6%.

As of Thursday, there were 1,156 COVID-positive patients in Los Angeles County hospitals, down from 1,185 on Wednesday, according to state statistics. The number of patients in the intensive care unit was 341, down from 351 the day before.

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Los Angeles County on Wednesday dropped out of the federal government’s toughest “high” transmission category and moved into the “substantial” category. But on Thursday, new cases pushed the county back to “high” levels of infection. According to Feller, this move is likely due to a two-day delay in case reports due to a computer upgrade that took place over the weekend, which means that no new cases were recorded on Saturday and Sunday. .. These cases are currently reported and may have affected the county-wide COVID infection rate.

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