LA Schools Could Reopen In Weeks, Health Official Says - Los Angeles, CA - Even though daily COVID-19 deaths remain high in LA, the coronavirus infection rate is dropping quickly.
Covid cases continue to decrease, elementary schools could reopen in coming weeks
Jan. 28, 2021 at 6:00 am
As Covid-19 cases continue to decrease, L.A. County could reach the threshold to reopen schools for transitional kindergarten through grade six in two to three weeks, according to Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.
“The state set a threshold for counties that want to reopen all their elementary schools grades TK through grade six at new 25 cases or less per 100,000 residents,” said Ferrer. “We’re at 48 cases per 100,000 residents. I do believe it will take us two to three weeks to reduce that rate.”
If cases hit this threshold elementary schools will still need to meet stringent safety protocols and reach agreements with teachers’ unions in order to reopen. Under state guidelines secondary schools are not allowed to reopen until the County has less than 7 new cases per 100,000 residents.
Outdoor dining to reopen in L.A. County as state stay-at-home order is lifted
Jan. 26, 2021 at 6:00 am
With Governor Newsom rescinding state stay-at-home orders on Monday, L.A. County officials announced that outdoor dining and personal care services will reopen.
The restriction rollbacks come amidst the promising news that the statewide surge in cases is slowing down. Average daily cases peaked in L.A. County at over 15,000 on Jan. 8 and dropped by over 50 percent to 7,238 on Jan. 20.
LA County now returns to the color coded system in the most restrictive purple tier. However, the system does allow for the immediate opening of indoor personal care at 25 percent capacity, outdoor private gatherings of up to three households, and hotels for tourism.
You may have heard about
monoclonal antibody therapy, the type of treatment touted by Donald Trump after he was hospitalized with COVID-19. The Food and Drug Administration authorized its emergency use to help keep high-risk coronavirus patients from becoming critically ill or even dying. But across the country, patients who are eligible for the treatment have not had it offered to them as an option and many don’t even know that it exists.
Even for some of those who do know and seek it out, getting access to antibody treatments has been
an uphill battle. Take Gary Herritz, a liver transplant recipient who tested positive for the virus and who knew that his compromised immune system made him vulnerable to a severe case of COVID-19. He asked his primary care doctor about monoclonal antibodies, but the doctor wasn’t sure Herritz qualified for the treatment. He called his transplant team to see if they could help but didn’t hear back. He spent two days punching in phone numb
Solis on Monday night announced that she had signed an executive order making COVID-19 shots available to residents 65 and older. The announcement marked a major policy shift, since Ferrer and other health officials have insisted previously that the county needs to finish inoculating health care workers before offering limited vaccine supplies to members of the general public.
Ferrer on Tuesday downplayed any perceived internal conflict or difference of opinion, saying she did not consider Solis executive order to be an “overruling of the Public Health Department.” Ferrer said the county has made tremendous progress in getting health care workers vaccinated, and she acknowledged the need to vaccinate older residents who are at higher risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 even amid scarce vaccine supplies.