The increase in pediatric cases is alarming some school officials, although a health expert said Wednesday that the best way to turn the corner was to continue to take the pandemic seriously.
“We all need to do everything we can to help those who work with less resilient crafts, and that means getting vaccinated as soon as possible and masking yourself according to CDC guidelines,” he said.
“People in this country have no appreciation for how lucky we are and how easily we could get back to a certain level of normalcy if everyone just did their part, and I think unfortunately it will take sticks because we are all without carrots, ”Christakis said.
As educators and students navigate a changing landscape, some schools and colleges are returning to online learning after a wave of infections.
Georgia’s fourth-largest school system, Fulton County Schools, moved one of its middle schools toward remote learning “based on a large volume of positive cases and direct contacts,” according to Wednesday’s school system.
Connecticut College in New London announced Tuesday that all sports classes and activities will be temporarily canceled, according to an alert issued by the university. Distance learning has been created and will be re-evaluated in seven to ten days.
Christakis noted that if more people were vaccinated and wearing masks, he did not believe it was necessary to keep students out of schools for months. “We have already made our children pay an incredibly unfair price for this epidemic,” he said.
Several states report a painful state in hospitals
Along with an increase in Covid-19 infections, the rise in hospitalizations continues in the hotspots across the nation.
In Idaho, the Department of Health and Welfare on Tuesday activated its crisis care standards in the northern part of the state because of what it called “a massive increase in Covid-19 patients in need of hospitalization.”
Crisis care standards are guidelines when it comes to worrying that hospitals may lack traditional resources, such as hospital beds.
“We have reached an unprecedented and unwanted time in the history of our state,” Gov. Brad Little said in a written statement. “We’ve taken so many steps to avoid getting there, but once again we have to ask more Idahoans to choose the Covid-19 vaccine.”
“Crisis care standards are the last resort,” said Dave Jeppesen, director of the Department of Health and Welfare. “It means we have depleted our resources to the point that our healthcare systems cannot provide the treatment and care we expect.”
In Arkansas, there are only 23 ICU beds left, according to Governor Asa Hutchinson, who noted data showing that 91.5% of those hospitalized and 90% of deaths reported by Covid-19 were among those who were not. completely vaccinated.
In West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice said Wednesday that state hospitals “are still overwhelmingly flooded with cases of people not being vaccinated.”
The state currently has 813 people hospitalized and reached an all-time high of 252 Covid-19 patients in the ICU on Wednesday, Justice said, with a record 132 patients with ventilators.
As of Wednesday, the state has “68 school outbreaks in 31 counties, (while) 10 schools and an entire county, Clay, are closed because of Covid,” the governor said.
“We just have to use common sense and get vaccinated, and then we’ll stop that,” he said.
According to the general surgeon, vaccination remains key
To end the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, preventive vaccination remains the key, U.S. General Surgeon Dr. Vivek Murthy, to Jim Acosta of CNN.
When asked if Americans who refuse to get vaccinated will perpetuate the pandemic, Murthy said, “We live with a variety of respiratory viruses, including the common cold, and we can manage it. What’s different about these? virus and Delta is that it doesn’t cost us the kind of numbers we see in terms of lost lives, in terms of hospitalizations. ”
Murthy said that through vaccinations and other safety measures in places like schools, the United States can reduce the current number of cases and hospitalization of Covid-19.
“We know what steps need to be taken to reduce risk in schools,” Murthy said. “We know that universal masking helps. We know that regular testing works. We know that distancing whenever possible is helpful. We know that keeping kids home from school when they’re sick also helps.”
Lauren Mascarenhas, Naomi Thomas, Andy Rose, Carma Hassan, Melissa Alonso, Rebekah Riess, Mallory Simon, Maria Cartaya, Evan McMorris-Santoro, Deidre McPhillips, Kevin Liptak, Kaitlan Collins and Veronica Stracqualursi of CNN contributed to this report.