One student or staff member from Malibu Elementary and one from Webster Elementary have tested positive for the coronavirus this week, with a total of four in isolation across Malibu’s three public school campuses and 50 students/staffers quarantined as of Tuesday, Sept. 21.
According to the district’s website, the difference between isolating and quarantining was that staff and students were to isolate if they were experiencing symptoms and/or received a positive test result, but were to quarantine following an exposure to someone who had tested positive.
At its next meeting on Thursday, Sept. 23, the school board was set to discuss the possibility of requiring vaccines among students—a measure that has already been taken by LA County’s largest school district, LA Unified.
As of Tuesday, the SMMUSD, which includes students from both Malibu and Santa Monica, was showing one of the highest vaccination rates in the county, with 80.1 percent of students ages 12 and up with at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. SMMUSD was the ninth-most vaccinated district among the 79 reporting data, according to the LA County Department of Public Health.
In the week from Sept. 14-20, an additional eight local residents tested positive for the coronavirus; there remained 10 local deaths attributed to the disease. In total, 638 cases have been reported among residents.
Forty-eight more residents received their first vaccine dose in the past week, bringing Malibu’s total number of vaccinated residents up to 7,193.