Los Angeles Health Director Says Schools Won’t Reopen ‘Until After the Election’

Los Angeles County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer recently said the county wouldn’t reopen its schools “until after the election.” Her comments will likely raise concerns about a potential political motivation for keeping schools closed.

“We don’t realistically anticipate that we would be moving to either tier two or to reopening K-12 schools at least until after the election, in early November,” Dr. Ferrer said in a leaked, recorded conference call with other school administrators and medical professionals.

“When we look at the timing of everything, it seems to us the more realistic approach to this would be to think we’re going to be where we are now until we’re done with the elections,” Dr. Ferrer added.

The audio was first released on KFI News’ “The John and Ken Show.” Radio reporter Steve Gregory appeared on the program to discuss the tape, saying that he had received the recording, though he did not disclose from whom.

After the clip played, the hosts began to wonder out loud why Dr. Ferrer had linked reopening schools to the elections. “What does it have to do with the elections?” one of the hosts asked. “That make no sense.”

“Could I interpret it as, they’re holding off until the election because sending the kids back into school would put everybody in a good mood, they’ll feel that the whole nightmare is over and that gives good will to Trump and more votes?” another host asked. “Is that what they’re doing?”

In a statement on the recording, a Los Angeles County Department of Public Health spokesperson told Fox News, “Dr. Ferrer’s comment was related only to timing any expanded school re-openings to allow for enough time from the implementation of changes to assess impact prior to expansions.”

Los Angeles Unified School District is the second largest school district in the nation with more than 600,000 students.

Also of note, Dr. Ferrer isn’t a medical doctor. She’s never treated patients and she’s not an epidemiologist. According to her biography, she’s spent 30 years “as a philanthropic strategist, public health director, educational leader, researcher and community advocate.”

Los Angeles county’s COVID daily cases have decreased substantially since July. According to a daily case tracker published by the county, in July, Los Angeles was recording as many as 3,545 new cases per day. On September 10, Los Angeles recorded only 854 new cases in a county with more than 10 million people.

Los Angeles has reported 241,010 total cases of COVID-19, which is around 2.4% of its entire population.

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