Health Officials Warn Uptick In COVID-19 Among Kids Caused By Decline In Mask Wearing, Social Distancing

Public health experts warn an uptick in COVID-19 cases among children in Wisconsin has been linked to relaxed adherence to public health precautions like mask wearing and social distancing.

The La Crosse County Health Department reports the county has seen 82 new COVID-19 cases among K-12 students in the last two and a half weeks. An additional 695 students are in quarantine because of exposure to someone with the virus.

Most of the new cases were caused by two of the more contagious COVID-19 variants, though the county declined to say which ones.

Jacquie Cutts, the department’s public health nursing manager, said much of the transmission among K-12 students has been linked to extracurricular activities where public health measures like social distancing and wearing a mask have not been closely followed.

She said there have only been a handful of cases that have been linked to transmission in a classroom setting.

“(We’re) trying to help families understand that one, it’s safe to send your kids to school so long as the school is doing all of those mitigation strategies that they should be doing. And two, if you want to keep your kids in school, make sure that the extracurricular activities they participate in are being just as intentionally safe,” Cutts said. “Sometimes it’s not as much what happens on a court or on a field or at practice, it’s what is happening around that activity.”

Cutts said that includes parents and other people participating or watching an activity. For example, the county recently traced 24 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 18 probable cases back to an outdoor sports event where spectators were not spread out and did not cover both their mouths and noses with masks while cheering on the athletes.

“We’re not even saying don’t have the activities. We’re saying have the activities, but please do them safely,” Cutts said. “Wear your mask appropriately and don’t pack yourself in like sardines; and if you know you’re sick or exposed, please don’t go to those kinds of events because that’s when we have this kind of large spread.”

Since all students returned to classrooms last week, Milwaukee Public Schools has closed seven of its 152 schools due to COVID-19, according to district data. At least 52 classrooms have also had to close. The school district closes a classroom for two weeks when one student tests positive. Three positive tests in a school causes a full school closure.

Nationwide, the American Academy of Pediatricians reported Monday that children represented 22.4 percent of new cases reported in the previous week.

But some school districts in the state have recently decided to ease coronavirus-related precautions.

The Waukesha School Board voted earlier this week to loosen the district’s coronavirus policy, eliminating quarantine requirements for students and staff who come into close contact with people who have tested positive for the virus. Officials say the district will still use contact tracing and allow students and staff to self-quarantine.

Last month, a handful of school districts ended or loosened mask requirements for students.

Dr. Greg DeMuri, pediatric infectious disease specialist for UW Health, said this is the wrong message to send to families given the more contagious variants that have increased spread among children.

“We really need to be doubling down on our mitigation strategies in the next few months, in the summer and the fall when children return back to school,” DeMuri said. “We’re going to see continued transmission in children until we have a highly vaccinated population, and that’s going to be a few months to a year.”

DeMuri said mask wearing and other precautions have been key to keeping classrooms safe even when community transmission is high. He points to a study by a pediatrician in Wood County that found little virus transmission in classrooms last fall even though community case numbers were rising rapidly.

“Most schools have been strict about mitigation measures, about physical distancing and mask wearing,” DeMuri said. “So it’s outside the classroom where that falls part — kids meeting other kids, meeting adults without masks on, being in those social situations and sporting events.”

Rather than a wave of increasing cases, DeMuri said communities will likely continue to see outbreaks or small spikes in cases related to spread among kids.

He said vaccine hesitancy among parents is a concern as federal officials get closer to approving vaccine use in 12- to 15 year-olds. Children under age 12 will continue to be susceptible to the virus until a vaccine is approved for them, which is months away.