Marin Outbreak Cited In CDC Report Draws National Spotlight

MARIN COUNTY, CA — Marin’s top health official issued a statement earlier this week explaining the significance of a report on a local coronavirus outbreak with national implications.

A Marin school outbreak in late May was the subject of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report issued Friday, which made national headlines, highlighting the formidable challenges that the highly contagious delta variant poses in indoor settings.

The Marin school outbreak resulted in 27 known infections, according to the report. Five of the infected children were asymptomatic and the others reported minor symptoms. None were hospitalized.

The school is not named in the report, but The Marin Independent Journal identified the school as Our Lady of Loretto School in Novato.

An unvaccinated teacher who pulled down their mask on several occasions while reading aloud to the class has been identified as the source of the outbreak, according to the CDC report.

Before the outbreak cited in the CDC report, Marin had reported just 12 cases of known transmission associated with 116 schools (public and private) serving 30,000 students going back to August 2020.

A county laboratory sequenced the cases attributed to the outbreak, and all came back as the delta variant.

“We knew something had changed,” Marin Health Officer Dr. Matt Willis said in a video the county posted Tuesday on YouTube.

“At that time delta, was still emerging and we were still learning how it behaved, and we thought it was an important story to tell.”

County officials shared their story with the CDC, which led to the publication of the report.

Willis was among the report's co-authors.

“It’s a simple story, but it has important lessons for us in Marin and the nation as we reopen schools,” Willis said.

Those lessons went into the development of reopening plans for schools this fall, Willis said.

Willis emphasized that the purpose of the report wasn’t to cast blame on the instructor described in the CDC report as the “index” case.

“In fact, the message of this outbreak is the opposite,” Willis said.

“We need to build systems and policies that protect schools. This report is important precisely because it cuts to such common mistakes or misunderstandings, not rare or random ones.”

Willis noted that in some parts of the country, political leaders have sought to restrict the rights of local school districts from implementing mask mandates in school settings.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has withheld funding from at least two school districts that mandate masks as the coronavirus crisis rages in the Sunshine State, NPR reports.

In Texas, court rulings have blocked Gov. Greg Abbott’s attempt to ban school mask mandates, The Texas Tribune reports.

“Remember, in some parts of the country, schools are fighting for the right to require face coverings indoors, and less than half of those who are eligible are vaccinated,” Willis said.

“This (CDC) report adds to the national evidence base that will support stronger new policies in those places that need it most,” he said.

"Because of our strong collaboration with schools and with laboratories, we were in a good position to understand and share what we learned about indoor transmission of the delta variant to inform emerging school policies, not only for Marin but nationally."

Among the key takeaways from the CDC report, according to Willis, are that the delta variant affords health officials a “smaller margin for error, especially in indoor settings, and where none under the age 12 can be vaccinated.”

Perhaps more importantly, he said, the report illustrates how individual decisions impact others.

“The implications are commonly misunderstood as being purely personal, but the virus uses unvaccinated people as a vehicle to spread disease,” Willis said.

“This report is a tangible example of how this plays out in the classroom.”

The report offers a blueprint for reopening schools amid the uncertainty of the delta variant.

“If our goal is to keep kids in school," Willis said, "everyone needs to stay masked, as is now the state law in California.”