Pace: It’s going to be quite a while before kids can get vaccinated
KELSEYVILLE >> The Kelseyville Unified School District livestreamed a special meeting of the board of trustees on Tuesday. Teleconferenced via Zoom, the event included a discussion regarding the reopening of schools featuring County of Lake Public Health Officer, Dr. Gary Pace.
“We’ve been working on trying to open schools for the last year. We fell into the purple tier. The school district is ready to open with a hybrid plan. That’s all ready to go at each site. We are ready,” said Kelseyville Unified School District Superintendent, Dave McQueen.
“We (were) bumped into the purple tier. Not the best luck with that. We are in a time that is sort of the worst part of this pandemic,” said Pace adding that this is the time health officials have been dreading. Pace said the number of cases, deaths, people in the hospitals, is rising. “We
“The vaccines are now the kind of the game changer that are on this, on the scene. We got 1,000 right up front and then we’ve been getting about 300 a week. Probably close to 1,500 people have been vaccinated now. In a county of 60,000, that’s not very many, but we’re making some progress and we are now in the process of setting up a whole infrastructure in place to start providing vaccines on an ongoing basis.”
— Dr. Gary Pace, Lake County public health officer
are probably going to continue having an increase in cases for three more weeks. We are seeing that from the Christmas and New Year’s gatherings,” he said. “We think this is where it’s coming from.” Pace added officials are concerned about the number of people needing to go into the hospital outnumbering the facilities’ capacity to deal with the influx of patients.
The County health officer believes the purple tier is going to last for at least another month or so. “The state is very interested in getting the schools open and the kids back in school if they want to be there and if the parents feel comfortable. It’s a feeling that the problems that come from kids not being able to go to school for this period of time, in terms of their learning, social development and socialization, are really bad,” he said, and mentioned scientific studies which show children seem to be less likely to get COVID-19. “It doesn’t mean they don’t get it, and it doesn’t mean there aren’t some bad complications that can happen, but the studies are showing that there seems to be less concern,” Pace said. He recommended people visit the webpage COVID-19.ca.gov for updates on the pandemic situation in California.
“The vaccines are now the kind of the game changer that are on this, on the scene. We got 1,000 right up front and then we’ve been getting about 300 a week. Probably close to 1,500 people have been vaccinated now. In a county of 60,000, that’s not very many, but we’re making some progress and we are now in the process of setting up a whole infrastructure in place to start providing vaccines on an ongoing basis.”
Pace noted the vaccines are not approved for children yet. “The tests haven’t even been done yet,” Pace said, noting it’s going to be quite a while before kids get vaccinated. Pace also added that the risk of cases is much lower in the schools, and “the benefits of being in school are so much greater than the risks.”
Kelseyville Unified School District Assistant Superintendent, Timothy Gill, rounded off the meeting with the presentation of a COVID-19 survey of employees, parents and students, which showed results such as “58% of our parents would like to go back for a full day in person instruction.” According to Gill’s presentation of the data, about 70% are comfortable or somewhat comfortable, and 30% are not comfortable with bringing students back on campus.