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Spencer Custodio en Noah Biesiada |
The openings of the Orange County Elementary School are in limbo after the state Department of Public Health cracked down on all re-exemption applications due to problems with reporting coronavirus data.
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Earlier this week, a wave of elementary schools applied to OC for exemptions allowing their classes to reopen. The exemption process was due Monday, after July order from Govin Newsom requiring schools to do online learning if their respective counties are on the state watch list, such as OC, for virus and hospitalization trends.
But the state’s reporting system glitched and there is a backlog of up to 300,000 test results that have not yet been reported to counties, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services.
“That failure led to inaccurate case numbers and case positivity figures,” Ghaly said at a news conference Friday.
Ghaly also said that any changes to public health orders – from schools that open classes to business reopens – will be kept until the data is sorted, which can take up to 48 hours. From there, he said, counties will have to process the results and make the data public.
School referrals will not be granted if OC has more than 200 confirmed cases per 200,000 residents in a 14-day period. Ghaly said that number could be affected by the incoming backlog of test results.
But there is also a difference between state data and Orange County Health Care Agency virus data.
As of Friday, the state Department of Public Health reported 176 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to the province Health Care Agency 104.
The OC office of Emergency Medical Service is of the opinion that the backlog has artificially created low case numbers, according to her daily situation report.
“We do not know the extent of it, but believe that recent data is artificially empty. This makes it difficult to know critical data points, such as transmission rate for diseases, positivity rate, etc. ”, Read Friday’s report.
Interim Orange County health officer, Dr. Clayton Chau, said the county health care agency expects general case numbers to increase once data traffic is fixed.
“We therefore expect that a large number of results, positive and negative, will enter the system if the state repairs it now. That we expect the number to go up based on the current number you see, ”Chau said at a news conference on Friday.
At an earlier state news conference, Ghaly said state health officials will work with health officials to clear virus data and the school’s considerations.
“Give us a chance to work with the counties and update the company numbers,” Ghaly said. “If counties can continue with the exemption process, they will be able to.”
“We look forward to truly restoring that once the province’s data monitoring list is unfree, so that our local communities, such as Orange County, can make decisions based on guidelines such as that exemption,” Ghaly said.
The exemption exemptions apply only to primary schools and juniors. The California Department of Public Health’s guidelines require masks and physical distance for reopened classes and mandate masks for students in third grade and above.
According to Chau, if schools reopen and the province sees a resurgence beyond the state’s borders, schools would not be forced to close.
“We do not necessarily have to close the school, we just have to work very closely with the school and the state,” Chau said at a news conference on Friday.
Meanwhile, the virus has now killed 704 people from 38,754 confirmed cases as of Friday, according to the province Health Care Agency.
For context, Orange County has averaged about 20,000 deaths a year since 2016, according to data on state health. According to the same statistics, the flu kills about 543 people over the course of a full year.
There were also 511 hospital admissions of COVID-19 symptoms, including 177 in intensive care units.
Nearly 453,000 tests have been conducted in OC, which is home to about 3.2 million people.
It remains unclear if the health care agency will report school outbreaks.
“I should have a conversation with the school and see if we post names of schools if there should be an outbreak,” Chau said. “The hospital official should consider whether this information is beneficial to the community or not.”
A list of primary schools that applied for the exemption and which schools were approved will be posted on the province’s website. Schools will also be required to post copies of their exemption application and return plans to their own websites.
Orange County has been at the forefront of nationwide talks about relocating schools to the county board of education issued a set of controversial guidelines ask for a return without masks or social distance.
That decision sparked a wide-ranging debate among parents, teachers and administrators about what a fall back should look like.
The board, too announced plans to file a lawsuit against Gov. Newsom at their July 28 meeting on the school closure, with the law firm of Tyler & Bursch taking the case pro bono.
Both the company and the board have refused to answer who will have to pay the state’s legal fees if they lose the case, and it has not yet been filed in court.
Here’s the latest on the Orange County virus number from county data:
Spencer Custodio is a Voice of OC Personnel Reporter. You can reach him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerCustodio.
Noah Biesiada is a voice of OC Reporting Fellow. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
