Students and teachers in Long Beach are still missing class in large numbers because of COVID-19, but the number of absences is starting to shrink as the spread of the omicron variant appears to be slowing locally.
After reaching unprecedented highs in recent days, the Long Beach Health Department reported three straight days of declines in key metrics measuring how quickly the coronavirus is spreading. On Monday, Long Beach health officials said the daily case rate was 378.7 per 100,000 residents, down from 426.8 a few days earlier. The percentage of people testing positive after being screened for coronavirus also dipped slightly to 27% from 29.7% early last week.
The trend of infections played out similarly in local schools.
Pre-COVID the Long Beach Unified School District averaged 95% attendance but had dipped down to 78% after returning to campus following winter break. That improved last week. The district was over 80% attendance every day ranging from 82.8 to 84%.
The bigger logistical challenge for the district was staffing classrooms, with hundreds of teachers absent due to testing positive for COVID-19 or being exposed. Over the last three weeks, there have been days where more than 500 of the district’s approximately 3,400 teachers weren’t able to work, straining the pool of available LBUSD subs and requiring credentialed district staff and school administrators to step in.
Today, 290 teachers were out—a big drop from the 504 teacher absences on Jan. 14. While that’s a big improvement from the peak of the omicron surge, it’s still an abnormally high number, and still required 40 classes to be staffed by administrators.
The district said it is hopeful this week is a sign that the worst is behind.
“The teacher data seems to be trending in a better direction along with our student attendance,” said LBUSD spokesperson Chris Eftychiou. “We hope the trend continues.”
The number of people in Long Beach area hospitals with COVID has also declined slightly to 332 from 336 a day earlier, according to data posted on the city’s dashboard today. The number of hospitalizations has slowly but steadily declined over the last few days in Long Beach and in Los Angeles County as a whole.
Last week, however, was Long Beach’s worst week for COVID-related deaths since March 2021. The city reported 16.
Today, the city reported an additional five deaths. Those numbers reflect Friday’s data, as there’s a delay in reporting over the weekend.
Breaking News Editor Jeremiah Dobruck contributed to this report.
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