Sonoma County health officer moves up deadline for school staff to be vaccinated

Sonoma County Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase issued a health order Monday moving up the deadline for school staff to be vaccinated ahead of the requirement from the California Department of Public Health.

Sonoma County teachers, classified staff and administrators will now need to provide proof of vaccination by Sept. 24, a full three weeks earlier than the state deadline of Oct. 15. Otherwise, any staff member will begin to be put on a regular regimen of being tested for COVID-19 once a week at minimum.

“After consulting with local school and community leaders, I have determined that it is necessary and appropriate to require all schools subject to the CDPH order to come into compliance sooner for the safety of school staff, students and their close contacts,” Mase wrote in the health order.

“Basically, we’re saying, look — schools here in Sonoma County, they’re ready for this,” said Matt Brown, county spokesman. “We know the vaccine is the best tool we have to fight the pandemic, and we want to get school staff and teachers on board with this sooner rather than later.”

Sonoma County Superintendent of Schools Steve Herrington has previously estimated that about 85% of school staff in the county are vaccinated.

Mase’s revised health order was accompanied by updated recommendations about other coronavirus precautions in the school environment, including masking and overnight field trips. The changes, announced within the first two weeks of Sonoma County’s largest school districts opening, show how efforts to protect students and staff from infection on campus are being adjusted, even strengthened, amid an ongoing uptick in cases linked to the highly infectious delta variant.

“When we started to work on this, schools were not fully operational at the time,” said Herrington. “I think it is driven by the school cases, which are a reflection of the community spread.”

Since schools opened, 38 cases of COVID-19 have been identified among 32 students and six staff, Mase’s health order said, all of whom were present on a school campus while infectious.

The cases occurred at 16 elementary schools and eight high schools. At least four of the people became infected through contact with positive cases at school, meaning that on-site transmission had occurred.

Herrington said he had since learned that two of the four cases linked to on-campus transmission were related to sports activities, not time in the classroom.

“It’s a very low percentage out of 70,000 kids,” he said.

Still, health officials eyed a few aspects of campus life to further reduce risk of infection.

The Sonoma County Department of Health Services and the Sonoma County Office of Education now “strongly recommend” outdoor masking in most school settings, especially on playgrounds and common areas where students congregate. The agencies announced the changes in a news release Monday afternoon.

The agencies said students should still be able to take socially distanced mask breaks outdoors, however.

A key reason to recommend masking outdoors is to reduce instances when students are forced to stay home from school if they are exposed to a sick student or teacher, said Jamie Hansen, communications director for SCOE. Some school districts have already considered instating a requirement.

“They can keep kids in schools so much better with masking in place outdoors,” she said.

The county health department also moved to “strongly recommend” that all schools conduct weekly surveillance testing for students. Surveillance testing is regular testing of students and staff whether or not they have symptoms.

“This type of testing helps catch cases early and can mitigate the spread on campus,” the news release from SCOE said.

SCOE expects to receive surveillance testing kits from the California Office of Emergency Services, Herrington said, and his office will store and distribute them to local school districts.

“We’re hoping these state resources will help,” he said. “Where feasible, once a week is the best standard. It’s a matter of having the resources, time and energy to do it.”

High-contact sports teams, under health orders put in place the previous school year that remain in effect, will continue to be required to test players before each game.

Mase also announced that overnight field trips for sports or other extracurriculars are “strongly discouraged.” SCOE had already received requests from some schools to host such trips this school year, Herrington and Hansen said.

“It’s just so hard to moderate youth behavior in an overnight setting in a way that mitigates risk,” Hansen said.

SCOE officials indicated that more changes are likely on campuses as the year continues.

“They’re building their COVID response actions as they’re opening schools and sometimes they’re bumpy,” Herrington said.

“It’s not for a lack of planning,” Hansen said. “It’s just that these conditions have changed so rapidly from what was thought to be best practice over the summer.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated to remove an inaccurate earlier reference to a specific school district that is considering, but has not implemented, an outdoor mask requirement.

You can reach Staff Writer Kaylee Tornay at 707-521-5250 or kaylee.tornay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ka_tornay.