So far, so good. California school openings aren’t driving COVID-19 spread
School re-openings have not yet contributed to a rise in COVID-19 cases, California’s top health official said in a press conference on Tuesday.
Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly said that “we have not seen a connection between increased transmission and school reopening or in-person learning.
Ghaly cautioned that his office is constantly asking the question of whether there is a connection, and that it may take a while to spot a trend.
“And so far, we have not found one,” he said.
Ghaly said that it is encouraging to see community and school planning being done “to make sure that it’s lower risk for students and staff alike.”
The announcement came as the state unveiled a new “equity metric” aimed at reducing COVID-19 transmission in the state’s most vulnerable communities, including Black and Latino communities.
The new metric ties the performance of the positivity rate in the lowest performing areas of a county to the county’s overall ability to advance through the state’s colored tiers: Purple, Red, Orange and Yellow. With this metric, counties with lower disparities in positivity rates will be able to advance quicker than will those with high disparities.
Ghaly said that the metric is part of a three-part plan to focus on equity in the state. He said the other two pieces include gathering more complete data of non-white communities, and focusing on ensuring the state invest federal dollars “to work on mitigating and reducing transmission” in the most heavily impacted communities.
