Colorado seeing increase in younger COVID-19 cases with schools about to reopen | Premium

That has jumped to one of every six new cases today, according to the data.

“That’s worrisome, obviously, to any parent,” said Devra Ashby, spokeswoman for Colorado Springs School District 11, El Paso County’s second-largest school district serving about 26,000 students.

Districts are relying on guidance from El Paso County Public Health and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment as they prepare to start the fall semester. 

“We talk with the health department every day,” Ashby said. “We have a dedicated COVID-19 czar on our staff so we can keep on top of everything.”

Some of the 17 local public districts have switched plans in recent weeks to start classes online only or to a mixture of online and in-person instruction. Others are having elementary students attend in person, and some are doing face-to-face learning for everyone.

El Paso County Coroner Dr. Leon Kelly, who also has been a lead medical adviser locally on COVID-19 practices, said community metrics, such as virus transmission, hospital capacity, testing capacity and contact-tracing capacity, are either improving or at favorable levels.

“We feel comfortable that for those schools, parents and faculty that choose in-person learning we can currently support the increase in social interaction if the school safety guidance is followed,” he said.

Deciding under what format to reopen has been a challenge for communities across the nation, Kelley said.

“We will continue to work with our schools to evaluate their plans and our local response,” he said. “Any of this can change if the data or updated guidance indicates that it should.”

Some schools in Georgia closed shortly after reopening and shifted to online learning following outbreaks of the novel coronavirus among students and staff.

“We’ve seen other schools restart only to shut back down again, and we felt it would be more stressful for families and students if we had to do that,” Ashby said, explaining why D-11 decided to primarily begin the new school year with remote instruction, but have students who are academically challenged receive in-person instruction.

The plan now is for D-11 to deliver online instruction through October, but Ashby said if it appears safe to bring students back to schools sooner in a staggered manner, the district would consider doing so.

Under a decision to provide equitable learning, the district’s board voted last week to scrap plans to charge students on a sliding scale — $50, $25 or $15 — for electronic devices, based on family income determined through the free and reduced meals program parameters, and instead provide devices at no charge.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment last week issued updated guidelines for detecting, reporting and responding to cases and outbreaks of COVID-19 in public and private schools, preschools and child care settings.

The guidance comes after the agency sought input from more than 70 representatives from school districts, school nurses, teachers union representatives, local public health agencies and counties.

Kelly said the complex information attempts to clarify procedures for who should not be at school, returning to school and responding to an outbreak, which is defined as two or more confirmed COVID-19 cases among students, teachers or staff from separate households with onset within 14 days in a single classroom or cohort (small group of students).

Definitions for schoolwide outbreaks include three or more classrooms or cohorts having two or more confirmed infections within 14 days, or 5%, or a minimum of 10, unrelated students, teachers and staff having confirmed cases within a 14-day period.

New quarantine guidance would send fewer students home and allow them to return to school more quickly if cold or flu-type symptoms are not COVID-19 related.

The information is designed to bring consistency to schools statewide, the health department said, but is not mandatory.

Included are a home checklist for parents and school staff to determine if a child should be at school, how long students or employees need to stay home and other specifics.

“The prior guidance lacked in some areas the ability for schools, parents and pediatricians to allow resolved, but previously symptomatic kids, back into school, as well as the unnecessary exclusion of cohorts in cases where the cause of the symptoms was clearly not COVID-19,” Kelly said.

The updated guidance details procedures for isolation and quarantine to minimize the spread of the virus and make in-person learning viable.

Students in entire classes or cohorts that have had positive cases should quarantine at home for 14 days, from the last day that the child with a confirmed case attended class.

Regarding masks, the guidance says, “Masks reduce the likelihood of spreading disease across the school campus. However, the use of a mask does not completely eliminate the risk of spread from an infected person to a close contact, so close contacts of people with COVID-19 still must quarantine for 14 days.”

While it is rare for children to get extremely sick or die from COVID-19, it does happen, the guidance says.

Older children are more likely to spread the virus to people outside the school, according to the information.

While schools are required to disclose names of people with COVID-19 to public health authorities, they should not disclose names of students or staff to anyone else, the directive says.

Colorado’s trend of new cases coming increasingly among younger people is also reflected in the 20-29 age group, where the increase in new cases has been the greatest.

But the higher number of infections has not translated into deaths among the same group. Only three Coloradans under the age of 20 have died from COVID-19, according to statistics.

Overall, the statewide number of new deaths from COVID-19 is down, the vast majority of which have been among those age 60 or older.

Deaths among infected people between the age of 30 and 59 have accounted for a somewhat larger portion of the deaths recently, but they are still lower than when deaths were at a peak in April and May.