News Update

Governor announces county monitoring list down to 34 California counties

Gov. Newsom on Wednesday said the state’s Covid-19 county monitoring list now includes 34 of the state’s 58 counties, with the addition of Tehama and the recent removal of Amador and Glenn. The list includes 706 districts and 1,023 charter schools that enroll more than 4.8 million public school students, not including those in private schools, according to an EdSource analysis.

Based on state guidance, schools in counties on the list cannot open for in-person instruction until they have been removed from the list for 14 consecutive days, unless they receive an elementary waiver for students in grades K-6 or are adhering to newly released guidelines for small groups of children.

Newsom also announced a new plan to double the state’s Covid-19 testing capacity and reduce turnaround times for test results to 24-48 hours. Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said the state’s new deal with PerkinElmer, a major diagnostics company could allow testing to be done at schools in the future and would help schools and communities to conduct contact tracing when Covid-19 outbreaks occur.