Weekly Update: Summer Camp COVID-19 Outbreak
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Recently, I found an article by MedicalNewsToday titled COVID-19 outbreak at a kids’ summer camp may be stark warning by Yella Hewings-Matthew. First of all, I was surprised there was even summer camp at all because everything over the summer for me was cancelled. Second of all, the article made me wonder whether the same thing would happen when school opens, as the outbreak happened fairly quickly.
To summarize the situation, a camp in Georgia had opened towards the end of June and within 2 days, there were reports of COVID. Soon after, the camp was closed and COVID tests were recommended for everyone there. This reminded me of the situation in Indiana where school had to be closed on the first day back due to someone having COVID-19.
I remember when COVID first emerged in the world, many people believed that children and teens, or younger people in general, could not get COVID at all, as many reports were about older or immunocompromised people. Even today, some people don’t believe that they can, but these reports tell a different story. Many of the camp attendees did get COVID and COVID symptoms and the longer they spent at the camp, the higher the chances of getting it were. The attack rate was calculated, which basically shows the risk for getting the virus. They did state that because only 57% percent of attendees did the COVID tests, the attack rate may not have been accurate, possibly being much higher. Something I found very surprising was that only a little over half the attendees even did the test. I think if I were in that situation, I would have definitely done a test to see whether I had COVID and if I might have spread it to family members.
All of this makes me think about what will happen when my school opens. We had the option of going virtual or in-person. While I did want to go in-person, as I had not seen my friends in months and did not know how the quality of teaching would be virtually, I ultimately decided to go virtual. Seeing all these reports of places opening back up and COVID rates increasing makes me strongly believe that people will have COVID at my school and it may be closed very soon after it opens. Hopefully, we are able to find a vaccine soon, so things can resume back to normal and COVID can be in control.
Written by Sreelakshmi Raghav, Founder of Everyday Med
