Orange County reported Sunday that coronavirus infection cases rose to 95.
While cases are steadily rising, no deaths have yet been reported.
On Saturday, UC Irvine announced that a non-student resident living in campus family housing tested positive for the coronavirus infection but is in good condition.
“The risk to the general campus population remains low,” UCI said in a statement. “As testing becomes more available in the coming weeks, it is likely that we will become aware of additional positive cases within the UCI community.”
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As the number of California coronavirus infection cases topped 1,500, state officials called on residents to stay home as much as possible, raced to get more people tested and enlisted the support of tech titans.
As of Saturday, the Laguna Beach and Newport-Mesa unified school districts planned to keep their schools closed through April 3, and with spring break already scheduled for the week of April 6, they would not reopen until April 13.
Districts in Huntington Beach and Fountain Valley on Wednesday extended their closures through April 17, citing local and state recommendations.
Newport-Mesa Unified initially said it planned to shift to online instruction beginning Friday. However, the start was postponed and now will begin with virtual parent and student orientations Monday and Tuesday, according to a district statement Friday.
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It created a tool kit for parents to use in the interim and said it plans to help students in grades three through 12 retrieve their district-issued Chromebooks or obtain one if none is available at home.
Danny Morris, principal at Huntington Beach High, said he called Ocean View High Principal Courtney Robinson on Friday morning to see if he could help distribute free meals to students.
“We’re kind of over at Huntington just … waiting for directions, so we wanted to help and make sure they had the support they needed here,” Morris said.
As a principal, Morris is responsible for 3,000 kids. As a parent, he is responsible for two of his own — a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old.
Parents are having to walk a line between maintaining a certain level of enjoyment for their kids while impressing on them the seriousness of the situation.
“My job as a parent is to find that line,” Morris said. “We’re not locked down.”
Morris said his family has set up a remote game night with another family.
“We’re going to have a FaceTime Pictionary-off at 7 o’clock on Saturday, so we’ve been talking smack to each other,” Morris said. “The way I set up our camera is I’ve hooked it all up to my TV, so we’ll be in our front room.”
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Robinson, who has four kids ranging from elementary to high school age, said she is trying to keep things as normal as possible at home.
“It’s hard,” she said. “I’m trying to make sure that I’m here, but then I’m trying to make sure I can be home to help them with their structure when their stuff starts, probably next week. My high-schooler is a sophomore, almost a junior, and she’s at the time when she wants to play softball in college. … But now we’re not even thinking about that. We’re just trying to figure out how we’re going to do the next week.”
“It’s been a shift,” Robinson added. “The biggest thing for us right now is [they ask], ‘Can I go do this with my friend?’ And the answer is, ‘No, sorry, you can’t right now.’ But they have been troopers.”
