Local K-6 schools can apply for waivers

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SALINAS>> Monterey County school districts can now apply for waivers allowing in-person instruction for elementary schools after the county’s COVID-19 metrics fell below state limits.

On Tuesday, county Health Officer Dr. Edward Moreno told the Board of Supervisors he would consider waiver applications to allow students from transitional kindergarten to sixth grade to return to in-class learning after the county’s seven-day COVID-19 daily case rate fell to an adjusted 13.9 per 100,000 population, just below the state limit of 14.

This is the first time the county has fallen below the state limit for allowing elementary school waivers since the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy system went into effect last month. The new system prohibited schools from pursuing the waivers in counties with double the average of seven new daily cases required for the county to move into a lower, less restrictive tier in the state’s monitoring system.

Moreno must approve any school waivers before in-class instruction can begin under specific safety guidelines, including class size and social distancing restrictions.

Supervisor Mary Adams, who has previously expressed concern about the impact of distance learning on both students and their parents, said she hoped “everyone understands how big of a deal this is,” though she also said it presented parents with a “tough decision” on whether to send their children back for in-class instruction given safety concerns and the challenges of balancing work and their children’s education.

Moreno had previously declined to accept any local school waiver applications even before the tiered system was established and the county was on the state monitoring list. He acknowledged over the summer that in-person learning would provide broad benefits for all students and especially younger ones.

County health spokeswoman Karen Smith said the county’s case rate was too high in July and August under the previous state watch list system to be considered for an in-person instruction waiver for elementary schools.

Local schools have been allowed under the state’s current monitoring system to form small groups of up to 14 students and two adults called “cohorts” for in-person monitoring of distance learning aimed at special needs students and those struggling with distance learning.

Meanwhile, the county is seeing a downward trend in both its new case and positivity rate since

the new state system was put into place. The county’s case rate has fallen from 20.7 per 100,000 population in early August to its current level of 13.9. That number has been adjusted slightly upward from the actual rate of 13.2 as a result of the county offering less testing than the state average. Its seven-day test positivity rate has also fallen from 12.5% to 9.8% during the same period.

In addition to lowering the number of new daily cases to seven or less, the county must also reduce its daily test positivity rate to below 8% from the current level to move into a lower tier, which would allow the loosening of a range of restrictions on indoor business and other activity.

While the county remains in the most restrictive “widespread” or purple tier under the state’s system, Moreno told the county board the county has been seeing a drop in new cases for more than five weeks now since a midsummer peak.

Moreno showed a series

of charts that included the numbers of new cases based on the date when symptoms began, along with overall hospitalization and availability of ICU beds since the pandemic began in March.

One chart showed that new cases dropped to 294 over the past week, the lowest it has been in nearly three months and indicated that the number of new cases had been dropping every week since a peak of 804 six weeks ago. The chart also showed new hospitalizations dropping from as many as 50 during that same peak period to just two last week.

Other charts showed the local hospital census of confirmed COVID-19 patients had dropped to below 30 for the first time since late June after a peak of almost 60 last month, while the availability of ICU beds has risen to about 65% after dropping as low as 10% in early August.

Last week, new daily case numbers dropped to as low as 23 after averaging close to 100 per day for months. Moreno said that could have been due to a decrease in local testing activity. On Wednesday morning, the county reported a single-day increase of 108 cases for an

overall total of 9,197 cases, as well as five new hospitalizations for an overall total of 539 since the pandemic began. A total of 65 people have died with the virus.

Also Tuesday, Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association president Kim Stemler led a call for the county board to request Gov. Gavin Newsom immediately allow local restaurants and wine-tasting rooms hit hard by the pandemic and the wildfires to re-open indoors. She argued the current state system would keep those businesses closed for indoor

operations until at least mid-October. Stemler said business owners are confident they can safely operate indoors and just need the chance to do so.

Supervisor Luis Alejo called it a “life or death situation” for local businesses and Supervisor John Phillips said the industries are at a “critical point.” Adams said the shutdown “is killing us” and added that she’s worried that by early next year the “Monterey Peninsula will be a ghost town,” adding that some predict as many as half of the businesses won’t survive.