Wayne County public health officials alarmed by the number of COVID cases in children

Wayne County, New York – According to Wayne County public health officials, a number of COVID cases in children make up to 20% of the county’s current cases.

Officials say every fifth patient testing positive for COVID is a child. They say it is a significant change from what they have seen in the past.

However, a rise in the number of children coming down with COVID has some concerns as the school year nears.

“We’ve never seen this amount of children contracting the virus, and so it’s very concerning to us. Right now, out of our active caseload, we’re looking at about 20 percent of our active cases are kids,” said Diane Devlin, director of Wayne County Public Health.

According to the department, they are seeing cases in children as young as three years old.

Ashley Barth of Newark has two small children and says she is worried about September.

“My son will not keep his mask on, but he might leave it on for a few minutes and he’ll take it off. I don’t know if in pre-k they’ll make them wear a mask, I don’t know how he’ll keep it on,” said Barth.

Andrea Geffell of Macedon has five kids getting ready for school, one is almost eligible to get vaccinated.

“We’re making sure he has enough masks at hand when he goes to school. When he turns 12, we’ll make sure he gets the vaccine, which puts my mind a little bit at ease,” said Geffell.

According to Wayne County health officials, the reason for the spike is largely in part because children under 12 are not eligible for vaccination as well as frequent social gatherings.

“We’re seeing something new, we have some clusters that are just impacting young people, who got together for recreational activities, overnights, those kinds of things, so we weren’t seeing all the children participating in those activities in the fall becoming positive, but we are seeing more trends in those children who are interacting together, and not vaccinated becoming infected together,” said Devlin.