Southwest Illinois youth COVID cases have continued to rise in the first weeks of school

Between July 10 and Aug. 28, new weekly COVID cases in school-aged children more than tripled in the metro-east, overlapping with the start of fully in-person school for most students, according to state health officials.

Early in the summer, COVID cases among all age groups had dropped as vaccination rates rose. By the end of June, though, youth cases in Region 4 in Illinois began to climb rapidly, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. Region 4 includes St. Clair, Madison, Monroe, Randolph, Clinton, Bond and Washington counties.

As the highly contagious delta variant became more prevalent, though, cases began to rise again, especially among unvaccinated people. Only children ages 12 and older are eligible for the COVID vaccine. School staff members are required to get the first dose by Sept. 19 or get tested at least once a week.

Data is not available for all six counties for every week over the summer, especially in June, when overall numbers were low. After the summer lull, the first week where all six counties were reporting again ended July 10: Between the six counties, there were 161 new cases reported for youth ages 5 to 17.

By the last week of August, that had increased to 534 new cases per week. The state health department updates the data for youth cases by county on a lag, so that week is the most recent data available.

Most schools in southwest Illinois started their new school years in mid- to late- August. Cases in the metro-east and all of Illinois have continued to rise during that time, including among youth ages 5 to 17.

Unlike last year, Illinois schools were expected to start fully in-person this year; last year, many metro-east schools continued to operate on a hybrid model with both remote and in-person learning for much or all of the year.

Full in-person learning doesn’t allow for social distancing to the extent that hybrid learning does. Hybrid learning has, at most, half of the student capacity that full in-person learning does.

Full in-person learning also means that schools are serving lunch again this year, which is one of the few times students are allowed to remove their masks. Some schools were able to have full days last year, but others continued to operate on a shortened schedule because buildings didn’t have the space to socially distance children to eat without their masks on.

Some area schools have already had to revert to remote learning this year because of student COVID outbreaks, including: Staunton CUSD 6 in Macoupin County, Carlyle CUSD 1 in Clinton County and New Athens High School in St. Clair County.

This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM.