COVID cases in students surge 182%
Nearly half one-week rise in infections tied to elementary schools
Positive COVID-19 cases among Texas public school students rose by more than 9,000 last week, the highest number ever recorded in a seven-day period, state data shows.
As of Aug. 22, there were 14,033 reports of COVID in students across the state, according to data released by Texas Health and Human Services Friday. The number represents a 182 percent increase from Aug. 15.
There were another 3,425 positive cases reported in school staff across the state, an increase of 712 from the previous week.
Forty-one percent of the 6,542 student cases tied to a particular campus by DSHS were in elementary schools, a Chronicle analysis found. Due to “privacy concerns,” DSHS does not identify which campuses were linked to the majority of student cases.
In some districts, more than half the new infections are among elementary school students, who are not eligible for any of the available vaccines.
“This school year is gonna look a whole lot different than last year,” said Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, an assistant professor of epidemiology at UTHealth School of Public Health in Dallas. “We have a whole lot more transmission now in the community and we have the delta variant.”
The start of the school year bringing together large numbers of students too young to receive the vaccine while previous mitigation protocols are eased
has created the perfect storm for a rise in new cases in children, said Dr. S. Wesley Long, medical director of diagnostic microbiology at Houston Methodist.
“The general thought before delta was that most children won’t have symptoms of the virus,” he said. “Now, we’re seeing how much more contagious the new variant is. We’re going to see a lot more kids get infected.”
The total number of cases in students since the 2021-22 school year began is 20,256. The total staff cases so far this school year is 7,488. The data released by DSHS lags a week behind the information provided by some districts through their online COVID dashboards.
The increase in cases comes as hospitals in the Houston region are filling up with COVID patients again and the more contagious delta variant spreads. Most districts are not requiring face coverings this year due to Gov. Greg Abbott’s order banning mask mandates. Dozens of districts, including Houston and Spring ISDs, have implemented mask requirements despite the governor’s order, which they are challenging in court.
Children under 12 still are not eligible to receive any of the available COVID vaccines, and many districts are not offering a virtual option due to a lack of funding.
During the 2020-21 school year, 148,197 cases were reported among Texas students and another 73,741 among staff.
In the Houston region, new cases have exploded as local districts opened their doors to students this month.
In many local districts, including Aldine, Fort Bend, Friendswood, Humble, Katy and Spring Branch ISDs, the majority of student cases are in elementary schools or early learning centers.
That is not surprising, said Dr. Annamaria Macaluso Davidson, vice president of employee health medical operations for Memorial Hermann Health System.
“In elementary schools, those kids aren’t eligible for vaccination,” she said.
Children that age are less likely to follow proper hand hygiene and social distancing protocols, and are more difficult to keep in masks all day, Jetelina added.
In Aldine ISD, 54 percent of the active student cases reported by the district Friday were in elementary and early learning schools. There were a total of 348 active cases in the district, which has around 67,000 students.
On Friday in Deer Park ISD, 48.5 percent of active student cases were in kids below grade six. Of the 208 active cases, 171 were students.
Of the 907 active student cases reported Friday by Fort Bend ISD, 50 percent were in elementary school or early learning programs. There also were 108 active cases among staff. The district, the fourth largest in the Houston region, has around 77,000 students.
The trend is not evident in all districts, though.
Just under a quarter of the 114 active cases in Crosby ISD are in primary schools.
Seeing higher percentages of cases in middle and high schools is, in a way, more troubling than seeing the majority in elementary schools, Jetelina said.
“It’s more concerning because we have a prevention strategy for them that works really well: vaccination,” she said. “It is disconcerting because it means those kids need to get vaccinated.”
Another change from last year, Long said, is the prevalence of several cases in individual classes.
“Last year, we would see maybe one or two cases in a class at a time,” he said. “Now, we’re seeing clusters where five or six kids in the same class test positive. That’s the difference of delta being so much more contagious.”
Though deaths in children who have the virus remains relatively rare, Long said the virus still can have severe impacts on kids, including hospitalization or long COVID symptoms.
“Even if a child is sick and recovers, that still impacts the child being able to go to school,” he said.
Higher community vaccination rates and recommitting to mask and distancing protocols are essential to quelling the spread of the virus in schools, the doctors said.
“Even if we level off in terms of growth in cases, we’re going to see this fourth wave continue,” Long said. “It’s going to continue to be very long and, frankly, tragic.”