A co-ed sleepaway camp located in upstate New York has said 31 of its campers between the ages of seven and 11 have tested positive for ...
A co-ed sleepaway camp located in upstate New York has said 31 of its campers between the ages of seven and 11 have tested positive for COVID-19 - but none of their vaccinated 12-and-up campers have been infected.
In a letter to parents, Camp Pontiac in Copake, said 31 of their 550 campers tested positive for the virus.
According to the letter, the first positive test case was detected on July 16, with the initial outbreak being on the girls' side.
A co-ed sleepaway camp located in upstate New York has said 31 of its campers between the ages of seven and 11 have tested positive for COVID-19 - but none of their vaccinated 12-and-up campers have been infected
In a letter to parents, Camp Pontiac in Copake, said 31 of their 550 campers tested positive for the virus
Most campers who tested positive have been sent home along with 88 people they have been in contact with, Jack Mabb, Columbia County Department of Health Director told CNN Thursday
The virus eventually spread, with the latest cases being the boy's side of the camp.
Most campers who tested positive have been sent home along with 88 people they have been in contact with, Jack Mabb, Columbia County Department of Health Director told CNN Thursday.
The few that remain at the camp 'live too far away to go home easily,' he said.
Half of Camp Pontiac's campers are 7 to 11 years old, and the other half are between 12 and 17, according to Mabb.
All but a handful of Camp Pontiac's staff and its children ages 12 and up are vaccinated.
Of the 275 staff members on-site, fewer than 10 are not vaccinated, Mabb added.
All of the campers who tested positive for the virus at the camp are under the age of 12, making them ineligible to receive the vaccine yet.
Vaccine companies are still in the process of testing the shots' effectiveness and safety for younger age groups, with a timeline for their approval being unclear.
The Delta variant now makes up 83% of all new infections
Every single state - aside from Iowa - and the District of Coluimbia are reporting increases of COVID-19 cases this week
Camp Pontiac's COVID-19 outbreak is among many recent camp-related Covid-19 clusters across the United States this summer.
More than 125 teenagers and adults at a church-run camp in Texas recently tested positive after an indoor event.
In addition, Kansas' health department reported numerous outbreaks linked to camps in and around the state. and in Illinois, more than 80 cases were reported at a summer camp there.
The U.S. recorded 42,706 new cases on Tuesday with a seven-day rolling average of 37,056, which is a 244 percent increase from the 10,771 average recorded three weeks ago.
Every state aside from Iowa has seen infections rise or hold steady in the last week, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of Johns Hopkins data.
Additionally, 298 COVID-19 deaths were recorded on Tuesday with a seven-day rolling average of 274.
Fatalities, which are a lagging indicator, have not dramatically risen but instead have slightly increased by 6.6 percent from the average of 257 recorded three weeks prior.
Health officials say this is because people now are protected by vaccines, though in states that have less vaccine uptake - such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee - hospitals are starting to fill up.
The surge has been blamed on the of the highly infectious Delta variant, which now makes up 83.2 percent of all new infections, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Health officials say nearly all new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are among unvaccinated individuals.
At the recommendation of the state's department of health, Camp Pontiac is testing all unvaccinated campers at least twice this week
So far, the outbreak does not appear to have spread from Camp Pontiac to the surrounding community, and there do not appear to be any so-called breakthrough infections among vaccinated individuals
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