Berkeley schools require masks indoors again
Students at public schools in Berkeley will be required to wear masks in indoor spaces starting Monday through the end of the school year because of high levels of COVID-19 in the community, according to an announcement Friday from Berkeley Unified School District officials.
Superintendent Brent Stephens said the city’s health officer, Dr. Lisa Hernandez, made the recommendation. He noted that the district has been able to cover only about half its teacher absences with substitute teachers during the current surge.
“Our collective goal in the final weeks of school is to ensure the last two weeks and accompanying celebrations can be attended by as many of our students and families as possible,” Stephens said. The school year ends June 3.
Students, staff and visitors at all school sites will be required to mask while indoors. Mask wearing is also required at all indoor school events, including graduation ceremonies that take place at facilities off-campus.
Stephens said Berkeley schools are experiencing “a significant increase in cases of COVID-19 among students and staff.” Administrative meetings will be held online, and scheduled indoor activities will move outside if possible.
Berkeley Unified was among the Bay Area school districts that lifted the mask mandate in classrooms in early March, following guidance from the state’s health department.
The decision to make masks optional in schools came after cases, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 plummeted after the winter omicron surge.
But with highly transmissible subvariants of the virus, including BA.2 and BA 2.12.1, driving a fresh wave of cases in California, the Bay Area now has the highest infection rate in the state. On Friday, the region reported an 80% increase in its new case rate from a week earlier. Hospitalizations are now as high as they were in mid-March at the tail end of the winter surge. Across the Bay Area, there were 472 people with COVID-19 in hospitals, up almost 20% from 397 a week ago.
Berkeley reported an average of 40 daily cases per 100,000 residents, which is above the statewide average of 33 per 100,000. When the mandate was lifted, California’s sevenday average was 8.2 cases per 100,000 people.
Many Bay Area schools are being affected by the rise in cases.
San Francisco public school students and staff reported 320 COVID-19 cases last week, including 303 exposures where those infected were on a school site within 48 hours of showing symptoms or testing positive for the coronavirus. That is the highest figure since late January. It also marks a 15% increase in cases at schools from the previous week.
Most Bay Area public school officials who spoke with The Chronicle on Thursday said they do not plan to change their classroom format for the last weeks of the academic year.
“We continue to work closely with San Francisco Department of Public Health to monitor updates,” said San Francisco Unified School District spokesperson Laura Dudnick. “We are following public health guidance and strongly encouraging vaccines and boosters to those (who are) eligible, encouraging masking, and reminding students and staff to stay home if they are sick.”
Oakland Unified School District spokesperson John Sasaki said that even after the district lifted mask mandates, most students and staff kept their masks on, which may have prevented the virus from spreading.
Sasaki’s comment came after administrators at the private College Preparatory School in Oakland on Thursday announced that they would switch to remote learning for the last week of classes, a precaution to stave off rising coronavirus infections among the student body.