Younger people who have not been vaccinated help spur a rise in the number of new Covid-19 cases, health officials note.
Five states – Michigan, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey – account for about 42% of newly reported cases. In Michigan, adults ages 20 to 39 have the highest daily cases, new data shows. The number of cases for children aged 19 and under is at a record high, more than quadrupling from a month ago. According to state data, there were 301 reported school outbreaks early last week, compared to 248 the week before.
Epidemiologists and public health authorities have pointed to school sports as a major source of covid-19 transmission. As of January, Michigan’s K-12 sports transfer is highest in basketball, with 376 cases and 100 clusters; in hockey, with 256 cases and 52 clusters; and in wrestling, with 190 cases and 55 clusters. In all, cases and clusters have occurred in more than 15 sports institutions, state data shows.
The general upswing among younger people in Michigan, and more generally, is a confluence of fatigue from the pandemic, causing some people to maintain closer contact, and the spread of the more transmittable British variety known as B.1.1 .7.
“We used to have clusters of the variant. The cases were in reasonably closed situations. Now we are definitely seeing cases of the variant popping up in the general community, ”said Emily Toth Martin, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “It is worrying that we are seeing explosive increases in groups where we cannot use the vaccine.”