Faced with more than 30,0000 unvaccinated older students, the Los Angeles Unified School District pushed back the deadline for its COVID-19 vaccine mandate the night before California’s universal indoor mask mandate went into effect.
The nation’s second-largest school district had planned to shift students who remained unvaccinated by a Jan. 10 deadline into its online school, City of Angels. But many worried about its ability to accommodate tens of thousands of new students at the start of the next semester, and the disruption it would cause for staff and children.
Los Angeles was among the first districts to adopt a student vaccine mandate. In September, the school board voted to require students 12 and older be vaccinated by Jan. 10.
Elmer Roldan, executive director of Communities in Schools of Los Angeles, said Los Angeles has already lost around 40,000 students this year who disappeared, disengaged or dropped out. Pushing an additional 30,000 out isn’t a solution, he said.
“Kids shouldn’t suffer because adults refuse to follow science,” he said.
The school district’s decision came hours before indoor masking became required for Californians in all public spaces on Wednesday, regardless of vaccination status.
State officials announced the mandate on Monday after a 47% rise in COVID-19 cases since Thanksgiving and the looming threat from the omicron variant, California Health & Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said.
COVID-19 cases have been rising steadily across most of the nation in recent weeks: New York also re-imposed its indoor mask mandate as COVID-19 cases spiked statewide more than 43% since Thanksgiving, straining the health care system amid staffing shortages, Gov. Kathy Hochul said.
California’s mandate will cover around 50% of the state’s population that currently lives in a county that does not have a similar requirement in place already, Ghaly said. It is set to expire on Jan. 15.
Also in the news:
► The omicron variant now makes up about 2.9% of U.S. COVID-19 cases, the CDC estimated.
📈Today’s numbers: The U.S. has recorded more than 50.2 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 800,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University data. Global totals: More than 271.3 million cases and 5.3 million deaths. More than 202 million Americans — 61% of the population — are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.
📘What we’re reading: A year ago this week, the first COVID-19 vaccines were given out, and more than 450 million shots have been administered across America since. The rapid development and manufacturing has been described as one of the greatest scientific achievements of our time. With all that progress, what’s next for vaccines?
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800K US deaths from COVID-19… and counting
Less than three months ago, the U.S. reached 700,000 COVID-19 deaths, and public health experts mused over whether the toll would reach a once-unthinkable 1 million.
Now the nation has surpassed 800,000 coronavirus deaths as 1,200 Americans die from the coronavirus every day, the delta variant drives an infections spike and the ominous omicron variant races around the world.
“There is no question that we will reach 1 million deaths sooner rather than later,” Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told USA TODAY in an interview. “At the current trajectory we may reach it much sooner than expected, with cases, hospitalizations and deaths significantly increasing in the past two months.” Read more here.
— John Bacon, USA TODAY
New study says omicron variant is more resistant to COVID-19 vaccines
The new omicron variant of the coronavirus is substantially more contagious and reduces the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, a study from South Africa released Tuesday found.
Early data from South Africa appears to show that people who are fully vaccinated are still largely protected against severe disease, according to early data by Discovery Health, South Africa’s largest private health insurer.
Even though the variant so far seems to produce mostly mild disease, world health leaders warned it could bring a wave of illness that crushes health systems
“Omicron is spreading at a rate we have not seen with any previous variant,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization.
— Karen Weintraub and Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
