School Canceled In Berkeley For 3 Weeks: Coronavirus

BERKELEY, CA — Berkeley Unified School District announced Thursday night that schools will close for three weeks. The closure begin in the high schools on Friday, and all other schools on Monday. The closures are the district's effort to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, or COVID-19.

"Berkeley High School students can still go to school on Friday to pick up breakfast from 9:00 to 9:30 and lunch from 12:00 to 12:30 at the Allston gate, and BTA students can pick up food in front of BTA," the district said in an email at 8:30 p.m. Thursday. "We are also making plans to provide meals for all students starting next week and will provide further details."

The district plans to re-open schools on Monday, April 6.

"Please know that the Board of Education and I do not take this decision lightly," the email reads. "After considering guidance from health officials, we wrestled a great deal to measure the costs and benefits of closing our schools. Today’s announcement of four new coronavirus cases in Alameda County, two of which are the county’s first cases of community-acquired transmission, added to our concerns."

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On Wednesday, the World Health Organization announced that the new coronavirus had become a "pandemic." The pandemic declaration refers to the scope of the new coronavirus — but not its severity — and means it has become a "worldwide spread of a new disease."

As of Thursday evening, 128,343 cases had been confirmed around the world, including 1,663 in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University. The death toll in the U.S. is 40, with four in California, 31 in Washington, 2 in Florida, and one each in South Dakota, Georgia, and New Jersey. The global death toll is 4,720.

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