By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
CONCORD – There are currently 110 active clusters of COVID-19 in K-12 schools and state epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan told school and child-care professionals Wednesday he is concerned.
It is possible schools are now contributing to community transmission, Chan said.
“The trajectory is increasing,” Chan stressed, “And it is a concern to us.”
The average size of a school cluster of COVID-19 is now 11 cases, Chan said, and the number of active cases of COVID-19 in both children aged 0-9 and 10-19 is among the highest it has been since the pandemic began in March 2020.
In the bi-weekly Zoom call to school and child-care administrators, Chan noted the problem was not so much in child care centers that have fewer cases than in K-12 settings.
The state announced 1,098 new COVID-19 cases Wednesday, 9 deaths and 317 hospitalizations. The state said 356 of the new cases were in children under age 18.
Chan said a recent Johns Hopkins study – which has not been peer-reviewed nor subject to recall bias – found that transmission to other members of a child’s family could be mitigated by measures including requiring teachers and students wear masks and that there should be restricted entry into schools, among other measures.
When asked about the continuing rise in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths Wednesday, Gov. Chris Sununu’s spokesman Ben Vihstadt said: “Throughout this entire pandemic the Governor has stated many times that mask wearing helps limit the spread of COVID.
“At this stage of the pandemic, with vaccinations readily available to anyone who wants one, the state has no plans to implement another mask mandate. The vaccine remains the single best tool at preventing the spread of COVID and is our way out of the pandemic,” Vihstadt said.
During the call, Chan sounded a bit of alarm for those schools that may be dropping mask mandates.
“The beginning of this year when we were highlighting on this call numerous studies that were being published showing that schools were not a high-risk location for contributing to community transmission but were rather a reflection of what was happening the surrounding community.
“We believe that was true, and there were multiple studies showing that it was true, but it was also most schools implementing more rigid, more strict community mitigation measures,” like mandatory masking of all, he said.
“I am concerned with what we are seeing now, with the levels of COVID-19 in our communities, with the increasing trajectory of transmission in our children rapidly increasing number of clusters and outbreaks in schools and the size of the clusters and outbreaks in schools that this may be starting to reverse and that we are seeing some evidence of schools contributing to community transmission.
“And we are hearing anecdotal reports of kids bringing COVID home into the family, spreading it to other members of the family which has an impact on parents going to work and other children being able to attend school and we are also hearing anecdotal reports of other family members developing severe illness, ending up in the hospital and ending up dying,” Chan said.
Chan stressed that to keep kids in schools and protect the operation of in-person learning, people need to promote vaccinations in all who are age 5 and up, masks should be worn by all in school and that schools sign up for asymptomatic testing services offered through the state in its SASS program.
Lindsay Pierce of the Department of Health and Human Services also urged administrators, nurses and child-care providers to report single cases immediately to the state by phone and not by paper transmission and that all clusters should also be reported by calling 271-4496 and choosing option 4.
Chan showed charts of the overall state situation with the virus that show the state is averaging now about 800 new cases a day, the highest or comparably the highest since its peak last December 2020 and January 2021 and the test positivity level is now at 9.1 percent over a seven day period.
No area of the state is spared the high transmission rates.
Chan said as of Wednesday, the total number of clusters in schools over time – not necessarily active – is 262 up from just 10 days ago on Nov. 7 when it was at 181, which is an additional 81 clusters (more than three COVID-19 cases in a setting) in just that short a period of time.