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A Summer Camp Covid-19 Outbreak Offers Back-to-School Lessons - WIRED

A Summer Camp Covid-19 Outbreak Offers Back-to-School Lessons - WIRED

A Summer Camp Covid-19 Outbreak Offers Back-to-School Lessons - WIRED
Aug 04, 2020 3 mins, 53 secs

As policymakers, school administrators, and public health officials in the US fiercely debate whether it’s safe to reopen schools at the end of the summer, one of the biggest stumbling blocks has been a lack of reliable information about how easily children and young people can spread the virus that causes Covid-19.

A few super-spreading events involving kids have been documented so far: a private school in Chile, a childcare center in Australia, and now, several summer camps in the US.

At one, in Georgia, more than 250 children and young adults tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to a recent report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency’s analysis shows that, contrary to some early studies, children of all ages can get infected, pass the virus on to others, and, the authors write, “might play an important role in transmission.” Public health experts say the outbreak, coupled with newly published research on coronavirus spread among children, has a lot to teach decisionmakers about how to proceed with school reopening plans as cases continue to surge uncontrollably throughout many parts of the country.

This single outbreak at a summer camp in northern Georgia is a case in point, showing how rapidly the infection can spread among kids once they’ve been returned to any sort of typical social network.

In mid-June, about 250 counselors, staff, and trainees arrived at YMCA Camp High Harbour, on the shores of Lake Burton.

A two-hour drive from Atlanta, the camp typically hosts about 4,000 school-age kids every summer, offering both daylong and overnight programs.

While the High Harbour counselors and staff sat through a three-day orientation, the state of Georgia reported a record-high 4,689 daily new coronavirus cases.

The public health department was called in.

Of those who were tested, 168 campers came up positive, along with 92 staffers and trainees.

For those who tested positive, 51 were between the ages of 6 and 10, 180 were ages 11 to 17, and the remaining 29 were adults.

CDC scientists calculated the attack rate—the percentage of camp attendees who tested positive out of total attendees—which, they noted, is likely an underestimate because of potential missed cases among people not tested.

The findings suggest that if young kids shed viral particles at the same rate as older kids and adults, they could be a significant driver of new infections.

“My best reading of the evidence is that older kids, high schoolers, we should treat them as adults.

(For questions about the outbreak, a Georgia Department of Public Health spokesman referred WIRED to the CDC report.).

According to the report, High Harbour followed many of the CDC’s recommendations for summer camps, including enhanced cleaning and disinfection procedures, staggering the use of communal spaces, and requiring physical distancing outside of cabins.

The CDC report concluded that in 28 of the camp’s 31 cabins, at least one person, and often many, tested positive.

In an emailed statement, officials at the YMCA’s national office told WIRED that the organization worked with the American Camp Association, the CDC, and a consortium of infectious disease, medical, and sanitation experts to publish health and safety guidelines for all Y camps, to use in determining if and how they could operate.

States are required to report any positive cases of Covid-19 to the federal government, a process which has been complicated as of late due to a disastrous data-collection turf war between the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Many state public health departments that WIRED contacted did not collect information about outbreaks at summer camps, or would only provide it under a formal records request.

The low case incidence, combined with strong safety measures, should make it pretty safe for these northeastern states to send their kids back to school, Jha said.

Amy Wesolowski, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says the High Harbour example shows that asking for proof of negative coronavirus tests before large gatherings isn’t a sufficient preventative tactic on its own.

In one of the first school districts in the US to reopen, in Indiana, just hours into the first day of classes, a call from the county health department notified the school that one of its students’ tests had come back positive, The New York Times reported over the weekend.

A high school in Mississippi has also sent 40 students into quarantine after three tested positive shortly after the start of the semester.

About two-thirds of states in the US, largely in the South and West, are currently experiencing “uncontrolled” community spread, according to public health researchers at Covid Exit Strategy, a nonpartisan group tracking state-by-state testing and hospitalization data.

Summarized by 365NEWSX ROBOTS

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