An unvaccinated California elementary school teacher who went to work while ill with COVID-19 ended up infecting 26 people, including half the class, according to a report.
The unidentified professor, who was working in Marin County in northern San Francisco, showed symptoms on May 19, but continued to work for two days before testing positive for the coronavirus, according to the report released Friday by the Centers. of U.S. Disease Control and Prevention.
The professor first attributed the symptoms to allergies and later developed cough, fever and headache, according to Marin County health officials and local experts.
The unidentified teacher read aloud in the class of 24 people without wearing a mask, despite school requirements for masking inside, according to the report.
According to an outbreak investigation, 8 out of 10 students sitting in the two rows closest to the teacher tested positive for coronavirus, as did four students in the back of the class.
Six students from a different grade of the school, which serves those from preschool to eighth grade, also tested positive, as did eight parents and siblings of students.
All infected students at the school were too young to have been vaccinated.
Among the five infected adults, one parent and the teacher were not vaccinated, the CDC said. Genome sequencing in 18 infected specimens showed that all cases were linked to the highly transmissible delta variant COVID-19.
The teacher was one of two unvaccinated employees at the school.
“This outbreak of COVID-19 that originated with an unvaccinated teacher highlights the importance of vaccinating school staff members who are in close inner contact with children not eligible for vaccination as schools reopen, ”the CDC report said.
The school appears to be the parish of Our Lady of Loretto in Novato, California, which had been linked to an outbreak in May, according to The Mercury News.
The Archdiocese of San Francisco said in a statement to the newspaper that the incident to which previous news was made and in the CDC report “was an isolated circumstance and has been addressed internally.”