Los Angeles, CA – On Wednesday, December 29 Los Angeles County Department of Public Health suggested that school districts should anticipate harsher Covid-19 restrictions that will likely be required by the time children go back to school in January.
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has indicated that the current cotton masks children and staff are wearing is not sufficient and that to protect everyone against the new variant, Omicron, staff and students should wear a KN95 mask. It is highly likely that masks will always be required indoors and outdoors other than when children are socially distanced while eating lunch. More testing throughout the school week will likely be implemented as the new variant surges throughout the city.
According to the CDC, the seven-day rolling average of new cases in Los Angeles is 20,198 with 24 deaths and 1,251 hospitalizations. According to data pulled from the CDC, out of 694,189 deaths, less than 0.1 percent of deaths have been reported to be between the ages of 0-17 years old.
Dr. Anthony Fauci announced today, “if you look at the children who are hospitalized, many of them are hospitalized with Covid as opposed to because of Covid.” According to Fauci, once a child enters a hospital, because of any issue, they are tested for Covid, and if they test positive, they are counted as a Covid hospitalized individual when they may be there for a broken leg.
Dr. David Rubin, a researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia stated, “I think the important story to tell here is that severity is way down and the risk for significant severe disease seems to be lower.”
The CDC updated their health guidelines following a positive Covid test from the original fourteen days of isolation to ten days to now five days.
The official updated rules of Los Angeles schools are expected to be published within the next week.
