Coronavirus cases grow in Newport-Mesa, Laguna Unified school districts one week after classes start

With a week of classes behind them, the Newport-Mesa Unified School District and the Laguna Beach Unified School District are each currently reporting several cases of COVID-19 among their campus populations.

According to their respective reporting portals, data from Newport-Mesa, last updated on Wednesday, indicates there are now 23 cases districtwide, or about .12% of the district’s population of teachers and students. That’s 15 new cases since last Friday, when eight were reported.

The majority of those cases were reported from Newport Heights Elementary School, where there are five confirmed cases, and Newport Harbor High School, where there are three.

In Laguna Beach public schools, data indicate there are currently about 16 individuals with COVID-19 in isolation and 18 others in quarantine due to close contact with people who are infected with the coronavirus.

The majority of cases in the district are from the El Morro Elementary School campus, where six cases had been reported as of Wednesday, while Laguna Beach High School reported five cases campuswide.

The dashboards are updated every time new cases are reported. It is unclear whether the people identified by the districts’ reporting systems as having tested positive for COVID-19 have developed symptoms of the disease.

Both districts started classes last week, ahead of other local districts — except for the Huntington Beach Union High School District — which are set to begin after Labor Day.

The Huntington Beach Union High School District began its classes Wednesday.

State officials have required public school districts to mandate wearing masks while indoors on campus but have largely left it up to districts to decide on how to handle non-compliance. District officials from Laguna Beach and Newport-Mesa said they have not had any issues with mask compliance to date.

Parents have heatedly debated the merits of wearing masks and their efficacy in preventing spread of the coronavirus, but area pediatricians have warned of a rise in juvenile cases in Orange County as the Delta variant of the virus continues to spread.

The Orange County Health Care Agency reported 147 new positive cases of the coronavirus in individuals between the ages of zero to 17, bringing the total number of cases in the county since the start of the pandemic to 31,808. In Newport Beach there have been 483 cases to date; 1,280 in Costa Mesa and 133 in Laguna Beach.

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