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COVID-19 cases surging among Williamson County kids
COVID-19 cases are surging in children under the age of 18 in Williamson County. This age group is now outpacing those 18 and older on a daily basis.
WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas - Kids in Williamson County are contracting COVID-19 at a high rate.
"We’ve seen a very dramatic increase in children cases since schools have opened," said Allison Stewart the Williamson County Health District lead epidemiologist.
This week the Williamson County Health District released an age breakdown on new daily cases.
The data on Wednesday showed those 17 and younger are seeing a significant spike. Of this age group those between 5 and 10 years old, an age group in elementary school, reported the most.
"We do have mitigation measures that we know do work and they’re not being routinely used in schools for a variety of reasons. That’s one of the reasons we’re seeing a very different picture this year than what we saw last year," said Stewart.
Health authorities with the district said they’ve seen COVID spread within classrooms in the county.
Leander ISD for example had made the entire 6th-grade class at three middle schools go temporarily virtual due to COVID clusters. It’s these cases in the classroom that can cause problems at home.
"We’ve seen a lot of cases this year which are unique, and that is kids were exposed in the classroom they go home and actually convert into cases and the illness goes all the way through the household. So now it’s not just the kid sick it’s mom and dad and people who live in the household as well," Stewart says.
In general, when it comes to COVID in Williamson County, Stewart said COVID rates have shown no signs of dipping.
"They’ve actually gone back up a little bit Wednesday and we are the time period of when we would start to see Labor Day bumps in surges."
The department of state health services reported on Wednesday 277 kids are in the hospital due to COVID across the state.
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