The continued latest Covid-19 surge has made for a rocky and uncertain back-to-school season, but the San Francisco Department of Public Health is celebrating the first weeks of school with no Covid-19 outbreaks since students returned to classrooms on August 16.
An outbreak is defined by the public health department as “three or more cases in non-related households in which the source of infection occurred at the school, and not another setting.” So far, San Francisco schools have reported only 227 cases out of 52,000 students and nearly 10,000 staff with the vast majority occurring outside of schools.
Nationally, there was a ten percent increase in pediatric Covid-19 cases from August 19 to September 2, highlighting the risk of the Delta variant to children too young to be vaccinated. San Francisco’s health department noted that the low case numbers among students were due to the fact that 90 percent of children ages 12 to 17 in San Francisco schools are fully vaccinated and that all teachers and students over 24 months are required to wear masks on school grounds.
