As the Omicron variant continues its explosive spread across the county, Public Health officials this week reported that the positivity rate among students and staff has climbed to more than 14%.

For the week of January 3 - 9, a total of 80,424 positive cases were identified in schools across the county, including 68,560 cases among Los Angeles Unified School District personnel and students, resulting in a test positivity rate of 14.6%, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

A total of three outbreaks among youth sports teams were also identified last week, with an additional 26 school related outbreaks still being monitored, Public Health said.

The Culver City Unified School District has not released any information relating to positive cases or outbreak among its students and personnel. But District officials said that they are testing the students and staff on a weekly basis and following the Public Health Department’s Covid-19 mitigating measures and safety guidelines.

In response to this latest Covid-19 surge, Public Health said it is working closely with 84 school districts and charter schools to implement additional layers of protection for staff and students. This includes delivering over 1.4 million test kits, which were provided by the state, as well as expanding contracted testing capacity at parochial and private schools.

“Given the importance of ensuring that our schools remain safe for in-person learning, layering in protections is a most sensible approach,” said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health. “Masking indoors; testing those who are close contacts of infected students or school staff can quickly identify others who may now be infected; and making it easy for those eligible to get their booster doses helps ensure that immune systems are best primed to repel the virus.”

The Public Health Department has reported the following Covid-19 totals for Culver City and LA County:

Cases in Culver City – 5264 as of 1/12

Deaths in Culver City – 119 as of 1/12

Cases in LA County – 40,452 reported on 1/12 (2,084,581 cases to date)

Deaths in LA County – 39 reported on 1/12 (27,850 deaths to date)

There are 3,912 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized in LA County. Testing results are available for nearly 10,442,400 individuals with 18% of people testing positive. Yesterday’s daily positivity rate was 20.4%.