Oakland USD Covid Prevalance by Zip
In their recent proposal, the OUSD teachers' union (OEA) stated:
vaccines are not widely available to all educators, community spread is elevated in three Oakland zip codes (94601, 94621 and 94603) in particular. Asking all staff to return in-person in a hybrid model is not appropriate at this time,
I wanted to better understand the second claim (elevated spread in three zipcodes), so I looked at the available Alameda County open data.
TLDR
These zips have definitely suffered, with much higher cumulative cases than other zip codes
If you think of "spread" as new cases rather than cumulative cases, though, it looks like recently this has settled down, and these three zips are more similar to the other OUSD-adjacent zip codes
Current state vs public health thresholds
Taking just the last date on the chart above, here's the latest rolling 7 day average new cases by zip code, compared to the CA Dept of Public Health tier system and the recommended threshold for resuming in-person TK-6 instruction of 25/100k.
NB: I believe these tier thresholds are for adjusted case rates, and the chart shows raw case rates.
And over the last 14 days of available data:
Quick note on data
Alameda county only publishes a snap shot of case rates. If you want the time series, you have to back it out from the cumulative case data. Alameda Co is bigger than just OUSD, so I did a quick and dirty intersection of zips and district to determine 'OUSD adjacent' zips. Map:
Now what?
Opportunity and suffering are not evenly or fairly distributed in Oakland, that's for sure. But I think the lack of open schools in the fall would be a huge failure for everyone's kids. I really hope OUSD and OEA recognize the urgency and make appropriate plans for safe in person opening come the fall.