As COVID in children spikes in NC county, officials worry about return to school
Nearly one in four cases of COVID-19 reported over the weekend in one Charlotte-area county were in school-age kids, health officials reported Tuesday.
Out of 451 new cases reported over the weekend in Gaston County, 110 were in school-age children, Gaston County Department of Health and Human Services officials said on Facebook Tuesday.
Those children will be in isolation for at least 10 days, according to the county. And anyone with close contact to those children may need to quarantine for 2 weeks — meaning some children who were in contact with those kids could miss the first day of school.
Still, masks will be optional in Gaston County schools this year, following a recent 9-0 vote on the issue. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board recently voted to require masks for all students and staff during the 2021-22 school year, while several other districts in the region have kept masks as optional.
Meanwhile, Gaston County health officials are worried about the spike in cases among children.
“As you can imagine, we are VERY concerned with case counts this high and school starting in two weeks,” the Gaston health department posted on Facebook. “If one of these positive children was not wearing a mask in their classroom, any child sitting within 6 feet, regardless of whether they were masked, would have to stay home from school for 2 weeks (unless they were vaccinated).”
Only people age 12 and older are eligible to get vaccinated, with the the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are only available to people age 18 and older.
Nearly two-thirds of Gaston County residents are not fully vaccinated. And 93% of people hospitalized with COVID in Gaston are unvaccinated.
Gaston’s vaccination rate is well below the state rate, where 51% of NC residents are at least partially vaccinated.
Statewide spike in COVID-19
The uptick in Gaston County comes amid a surge of COVID-19 cases across the state. And in Mecklenburg, all COVID-19 trends are moving in the wrong direction, according to local health officials.
The surge in cases is largely due to a spike in the highly contagious delta variant of COVID-19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have asked even fully vaccinated people to begin wearing masks indoors in public once more, because research shows vaccinated people can still transmit the delta variant.
Charlotte doctors have also seen a big spike in COVID-19 cases among children. Novant Health pediatrician Dr. Catherine Ohmstede called the increase a “dramatic uptick” last week.
In fact, the rate of increase in COVID-19 cases looks similar to the speed of the spike in cases reported in January, she said.
In January, Mecklenburg County was reporting its highest ever rate of daily increases in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations on average.
And Ohmstede has seen an increase of COVID-19 cases among all ages of children.
“This week I’ve seen babies, toddlers, school-aged children and teenagers, across the board come in with COVID diagnoses and COVID symptoms,” Ohmstede said.
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