Younger COVID patients ‘driving this new surge,’ Fresno doctor says. Why he’s worried
In the earliest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, senior citizens were viewed as the most vulnerable segment of the population susceptible to coronavirus infections in Fresno County.
Since coronavirus vaccines became more widely available earlier this year, however, a higher proportion of senior citizens have gotten their shots. And as that percentage grows, the number of cases among older residents continues to shrink.
But amid a new surge in coronavirus infections, primarily among the unvaccinated population, a rising number of cases are emerging in younger populations – including children under the age of 12 who are not yet eligible to receive vaccines. The Fresno County Department of Public Health reports that children now outnumber senior citizens among patients showing up at hospital emergency rooms with symptoms consistent with COVID-19.
“The older folks are no longer driving this surge,” said Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim health officer. “The case rate is being driven by our 10- to 19-year olds” as well as people in their 20s and 30s. “That’s who’s actually driving this new surge.”
In a weekly briefing with reporters Friday, Vohra and health department assistant director Joe Prado expressed worry about the increase in cases among younger segments of the population, including children.
In late January, senior citizens with COVID-like symptoms accounted for about 25% of all emergency room visits, while children represented about 15%. “Now what we’re seeing as we hit May, June and now in July, (childhood ER visits) grow upwards to almost 20%,” Prado said. “In the emergency room, it has completely flipped. (Cases for) 65 and older now is below, and the 0-to-18 (cases) are growing.”
“This is concerning because the under-18 population, they’re not all eligible to be vaccinated,” Prado added. “Their only protection is the people around them.”
Vohra noted that many – but not all – children who contract coronavirus will recover. “But this is showing that these (younger) people are sick enough to go the ER,” he said. Besides the inconvenience and disruption to plans that a trip to the emergency room can create for a family, there’s also factors of medical bills and, if a case is serious enough, admission to the hospital for inpatient treatment.
“It’s much better (for the people around the children) to get the vaccine than to catch COVID and end up in the ER,” Vohra added.
The county’s data shows that while the overall rate of new daily cases is about seven per 100,000 residents, the case rate among the 10-to-19 age group is now about eight per 100,000, up from between three and four cases a few months ago. By contrast, the rate of new cases among seniors has fallen to levels that are now lower than the overall countywide average.
In a statement issued earlier this week, Vohra said the new trend of younger COVID cases is “a sobering premonition for what we can expect once schools reopen this fall.”
“We anticipate that Fresno County will continue to see a rise in COVID-19 case counts in our younger population during the first few weeks of school,” he added. “This is a critical moment in our community’s response to the pandemic, and the best way to protect school-age children, their families, and our whole community is to use the prevention measures that we know can work to decrease case transmissions.”
Those measures, Vohra said, are vaccinations for people ages 12 and older who are eligible to get their shots, as well as following new recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the California Department of Public Health for people to wear face masks when indoors, regardless of vaccination status.
The renewed call for people who are vaccinated to resume wearing masks comes as the U.S. and California experience sharp increases in the transmission of the Delta variant of coronavirus. The strain, which emerged in India last fall and has spread around the world, is more highly contagious than other forms of the virus, even among people who are vaccinated, and may also cause more severe illness for those who haven’t gotten their shots, Vohra said.
As of Friday morning, Vohra said Fresno County had been notified of at least 87 people who have caught the Delta variant – about double the known cases earlier this week.
But Vohra and Fresno County senior epidemiologist Dr. Stephanie Koch-Kumar added that there are likely many more cases that have gone undetected because of the limited number of positive coronavirus tests that are sent to state labs for the genetic sequencing needed to verify the strain of the virus.
The warnings about rising COVID-19 cases in the under-18 population come as school districts contend with parents who object to recommendations from the state and the CDC that masks be required for students when they return to classrooms in the coming weeks.
But the state is leaving decisions on how to enforce those requirements up to individual school districts.
In the Clovis Unified School District, the school board Thursday voted to allow parents to seek exemptions to the mask requirement — without a doctor’s note or verification — for their children on several bases, including medical reasons, disability, hearing impairment, or mental health.
Trustees, however, were careful to remind parents that face masks are required in California schools, noting that students can’t refuse to wear one simply because they don’t want to.
