Employers Ramp Up Vaccine Pressure; LAUSD Confirms Outbreak

LOS ANGELES, CA — An elementary school in Hollywood reported the first classroom coronavirus outbreak of the school year Wednesday amid signs that school districts and private employers are considering more aggressive measures to increase vaccination rates.

A week into the new school year, LAUSD confirmed that 11 students and staff at Grant Elementary School in Hollywood tested positive for COVID-19 with seven of the cases the result of ``school-based transmission." The announcement comes a day after the Beverly Hills Unified School District Board of Education debated the need for more safety measures such as mandated testing and vaccinations.

Last week, Culver City Unified became the first district in the state to mandate student vaccines. Los Angeles Unified, the largest district in the state, has refrained from mandating student vaccines. Instead, the district will have mobile vaccination teams visit every LAUSD middle and high school campus to deliver first and second doses on a voluntary basis starting Monday.

Less than two days after the FDA granted full approval to the Pfizer vaccine, private employers also ramped up pressure on employees to get vaccinated whether through mandates, testing burdens or even financial penalties. Both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission affirmed employers' power to require employees to get vaccinated this week after President Joe Biden encouraged companies to mandate vaccines, the Associated Press reported.

On Wednesday Delta Air Lines announced that it would charge employees on the company health plan $200 a month if they fail to get inoculated while also requiring weekly testing among the unvaccinated and ending extended pay protection to unvaccinated workers sick with COVID-19. The measures stop shy of measures taken by other airlines such as Frontier and American Airlines, which is requiring employees to get vaccinated as a condition of employment.

Other major Los Angeles County employers mandating vaccines include Walt Disney Co, Tyson Foods, CVS and Wallgreens, and executive producers overseeing film sets.

Meanwhile, the county reported 36 new COVID-19 fatalities, raising the county's death toll from throughout the pandemic to 25,150. Another 3,322 cases were also confirmed, raising the cumulative total to 1,391,363.

The rolling average rate of people testing positive for the virus was 2.9% as of Wednesday, up slightly from 2.8% on Monday and Tuesday.

The latest figures show that 73% of county residents age 12 and over have received at least one dose of vaccine, and 64% are fully vaccinated. Among residents aged 65 and older, 90% have received at least one dose, and 80% are fully vaccinated.

A federal study of Los Angeles virus statistics released this week found that unvaccinated residents were five times more likely to get infected and 29 times more likely to wind up hospitalized.

The study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention determined that between May 1 and July 25, 25.3% of COVID-19 infections in the county occurred among fully vaccinated people, while 71.4% were in unvaccinated people and 3.3% among those who were partially vaccinated.
According to the study, people who were unvaccinated were 4.9 times more likely to be infected with the virus during that period, and 29.2 times more likely to be hospitalized.

"The findings in this report are similar to those from recent studies indicating that COVID-19 vaccination protects against severe COVID-19 in areas with increasing prevalence of the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant," according to the CDC report. "Efforts to increase COVID-19 vaccination coverage, in coordination with other prevention strategies, are critical to preventing COVID- 19-related hospitalizations and deaths. Ongoing surveillance to characterize post-vaccination infections, hospitalizations and deaths will be important to monitor vaccine effectiveness, particularly as new variants emerge."

County health officials have repeatedly insisted that while people who get vaccinated can still contract the virus, they are far less likely to become seriously ill, require hospitalization or die.
"The data continues to provide reassurance that fully vaccinated people are protected from severe COVID-19 illness," county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement Wednesday. "Together we must continue to increase COVID-19 vaccinations, in coordination with other prevention strategies like masking, testing, contact tracing and quarantine. These efforts are critical to preventing COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths."

According to state figures, there were 1,731 COVID-positive patients in Los Angeles County hospitals as of Wednesday, down from 1,747 on Tuesday. There were 463 people in intensive care, the same as Tuesday.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.