3 kids test positive for COVID at Fresno County camp. Is Delta variant a bigger concern?
Multiple children at Hume Lake Christian Camp have tested positive for COVID-19, according to news reports, and Fresno County health officials say it’s something of a cautionary tale for those trying to go back to school without masks.
At least three campers tested positive for COVID-19 and hundreds more were potentially exposed at the Fresno County camp, according to KRON4, a San Francisco-area TV station.
Hume Lake notified parents about the infections on July 15, which was four days after the campers had arrived, according to the TV station.
Hume Lake did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Fresno Bee. Camp officials told KRON4 in a statement, “All necessary precautions were taken to keep campers safe.”
“We require a vaccination or negative COVID test within three days of attending camp at Hume Lake,” officials said. “We initiated contact tracing by a team of trained professionals to identify people who may have been exposed to the positive campers, and those individuals were sent home per our protocols.”
Officials said they began a deep cleaning of the areas the infected kids had recently been.
Health officials say the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 may be a greater concern for young people than earlier versions of the virus.
As of July 8, more than 4 million children had been diagnosed with COVID-19, which is 14.2 percent of all cases, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. More than 31,000 new cases were reported in the week of June 24 to July 8, the association reported.
At least 335 children, ages 17 and younger, have died from COVID-19, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Serious complications in children remain extremely rare, but increasing cases among children, including severe ones, are expected as the delta variant spreads and with no COVID vaccine authorized for children under the age of 12.
Fresno County
The Fresno County Department of Public Health is aware of the infections at the camp but stopped short of describing the incidents as an outbreak, according to Dr. Rais Vohra, the interim health officer.
The county has been working with camp runners to ensure safe practices, he said.
“I do worry about summer camps in general. We’re seeing a lot more younger folks getting Delta infections,” Vohra said. “(Summer camp) is where kids are going to congregate and maybe be unmasked.”
Health officials cautioned parents to be diligent looking into camp safety before sending children off to summer camp, and making sure children are healthy before they go to the camp.
The infections at summer camps may be a glimpse of what schools could see if they are too loose about safety, Vohra said.
Some area parents have been avidly opposing requirements to where masks as schools begin in the fall. The most recent example was a large group of protesting parents at a Clovis Unified School Board meeting on Wednesday.
Vohra said area schools were able to operate safely at the end of the last school year, and advised schools and parents to continue masking and any other precautions they were doing before the school year ended.
“I’m predicting we’re going to see an uptick in children getting it when schools are back in,” Vohra said. “We’re going to try to limit that as much as possible, but it’s really going to be up to all of us as parents, as community members, as health care providers to try to keep them out of as much danger as we can.”
This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 3:14 PM.
