The San Francisco Health Department released new data Thursday, showing not only has the city's school district avoided a COVID-19 surge, but it hasn’t had a single case of transmission at any of its schools.
“We wanted to have enough data to go to the public and say what we’re seeing within these initial three to four weeks is assuring,” said Dr. Naveena Bobba, deputy director at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
She says with children back to in-person learning, it's important to make sure parents know their classrooms are safe and low risk as long as guidelines are followed.
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“Nationally we are seeing throughout the country that is a large portion of pediatric cases occurring as well as hospitalizations but clearly that is very different in California and San Francisco and that’s because of such a high vaccination rate,” said Bobba. “I do have to say those that are 12 to 17 have achieved a 90% fully vaccinated rate.”
San Francisco released data showing that while there have been cases identified in schools, there has not been a single outbreak of COVID at any of the city's public or private schools this school year, even with the delta variant surge.
“Almost all of the cases are due to community or household transmission and that there has been less than five cases due to any type of in school transmission so all of this is to say that we have been working hard with our different school providers to ensure children can return back to school,” said Bobba.
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SFUSD has reported a total of 227 cases among it's more than 50,000 students and staff and the district superintendent issued a statement reading in part, “San Francisco Unified has not had any cases of in school transmission both last spring and this fall and the data affirms that the health and safety measures we have in place including masking, improving ventilation, PPE and requiring all staff to be vaccinated are keeping schools safe.”
The San Francisco Teachers Union released a similar statement praising the work of teachers and staff to keep kids safe.
