L.A. County Will Open School Waiver Program for Grades TK-2

39 New Death and 905 New Positive Cases of Confirmed COVID-19 in Los Angeles County

After a motion was approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (Public Health) will plan to open the school waiver program for in person instruction for grades TK-2.

The program will begin accepting applications in early October for 30 schools per week and prioritize the issuance of waivers to schools with higher percentages of students qualified for free/reduced meals.

Superintendents must submit school district waiver requests to re-open for approval by the local Health Officer. The decision to grant a waiver will be based on ensuring that schools are able to open in full adherence with the L.A. County school re-opening protocols. The process requires consultation with the California Department of Public Health prior to accepting or rejecting waiver applications. The application process will be available online at publichealth.lacounty.gov and will be launched in early October.

Today, Public Health has confirmed 39 new deaths and 905 new cases of confirmed COVID-19.  To date, Public Health has identified 269,284 positive cases of COVID-19 across all areas of L.A. County, and a total of 6,551 deaths.

There are 714 people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 and 34% of these people are in the ICU.

“Each day we think of the families across our communities experiencing the sorrow of losing someone they love to COVID-19. We are so sorry for your loss,” said Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health. “We have to remember that with every re-opening there is increased risk for COVID-19 transmission.  Our cautious approach to re-opening, thus far, has led to slight decreases of daily cases, hospitalizations and deaths, and we will continue to move cautiously so that we can consider safely reopening additional services and businesses in the near future. We will be reviewing waiver applications meticulously so that we can be assured that the schools have the protocols in place that will minimize COVID-19 spread as much as possible.”

Although Los Angeles County met the State’s metric thresholds for Tier 2 last week, L.A. County remains in Tier 1 due to the current adjusted daily case rate of 7.3 cases per 100,000 residents. Per the State guidelines, to move to Tier 2, the County’s case rate needs to be 7 or fewer new cases a day per 100,000 residents for two consecutive weeks.  The County’s test positivity rate is 2.9% which places the County in Tier 3 for this metric. The State places Counties in the most restrictive Tier when the metrics fall in two different tiers, so the County remains in Tier 1 because the daily case rate indicates there is still widespread transmission in our communities.

Of the 39 new deaths reported today, 23 people that passed away were over the age of 80 years old, 11 people who died were between the ages of 65 and 79 years old, four people who died were between the ages of 50 and 64 years old, and one person who died was between the ages of 30 and 49 years old. Thirty-one people who died had underlying health conditions including 17 people over the age of 80, nine people between the ages of 65 and 79 years old, four people between the ages of 50 and 64 years old, and one person between the ages of 30 and 49 years old.

Ninety-two percent of the people who died from COVID-19 had underlying health conditions. Of those who died, information about race and ethnicity is available for 6,165 people (99 percent of the cases reported by Public Health); 51% of deaths occurred among Latino/Latinx residents, 23% among White residents, 15% among Asian residents, 10% among African American/Black residents, less than 1% among Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander residents and 1% among residents identifying with other races.  Upon further investigation, 76 cases and three deaths reported earlier were not L.A. County residents.

Testing results are available for more than 2,654,000 individuals with 9% of all people testing positive.

The Reopening Protocols, COVID-19 Data Dashboard, Recovery Metrics, Recovery Dashboard, and additional things you can do to protect yourself, your family and your community are on the Public Health website, www.publichealth.lacounty.gov.

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