COVID-19 cases at Manteca Unified have dropped to their lowest level of the current school year.

As of Thursday there were 23 cases — 14 students and nine among teachers and support staff.

That is down from 47 the prior week. Altogether Manteca Unified has nearly 26,000 students and staff members.

Staff is now under a state mandate to be vaccinated or submit weekly COVID tests. As of the start of the week five-sixth of the 2,369 staff members were fully vaccinated.

Gov. Newsom has also ordered all staff and students to be fully vaccinated unless they qualify for an exception once vaccinations for children have been cleared and launched. Based on his directive that it respect school academic calendars it is likely the mandate won’t go into effect until the start of the 2022-2023 school year in August.

As of Friday 74.8 percent of Manteca residents in the targeted age groups have been fully vaccinated. Another 8.6 percent are partially vaccinated. Those numbers for Lathrop are 87.6 percent and 9.2 percent. The Ripon numbers are 67.2 percent and 6.9 percent.  

Countywide 59.8 percent of the targeted population is fully vaccinated with 8.2 percent partially vaccinated.

California overall is at 60.47 percent fully vaccinated and another 12.53 percent partially vaccinated.

Nationally, 60.5 percent  are fully vaccinated and 13.1 percent partially vaccinated.

Seven more Manteca

deaths in past 10 days

Seven more people have died from COVID-19 in the past 10 days in Manteca even as case rates continue to decline.

There have now been 148 deaths in Manteca since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. The death county in Ripon is at 29 and in Lathrop at 28. Countywide 1,731 people have died from COVID with just over half of those — 871 — in Stockton.

Of those deaths 11 out of 15 were people 65 and older.

Just over 1 in 20 deaths recorded in San Joaquin County since the start of September have been among the ranks of the fully vaccinated.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com