California Today

How to limit infections in the classroom. Plus, what the data shows about how the Delta variant affects children.

This wasn’t how the school year was supposed to begin.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in the nation, and several other districts in California return to in-person classes today. But the relief and joy of this much-anticipated moment has, for many, been eclipsed by uncertainty and anxiety.

Amid an alarming rise in coronavirus cases nationwide, schools in Texas, Arizona and elsewhere have already had to close due to outbreaks, heightening fears among parents in California. In one county in the Atlanta suburbs, more than 700 students and staff tested positive for the virus in just the first two weeks of school, my colleagues report.

But experts say that though reopening does increase the risks of transmission, California classrooms will be among the safest in the nation. Here, masks are required and teachers must be vaccinated against the virus.

“We’re not seeing outbreaks when people are following the guidelines,” Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at Stanford Medicine and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, told me. “When people point out ‘Look at this outbreak’ in this school or that school, it’s almost exclusively because they’re not wearing masks.”

Still, the reopening of schools comes at an unfortunate time. The highly contagious Delta variant is spreading widely in the U.S. and vaccines haven’t been approved for children under 12, leaving them especially vulnerable to infection.

But there are ways to help keep kids safe. Experts told me that layering multiple safety measures can provide strong protection, a strategy sometimes called the swiss cheese model.