* Karen Ann Cullotta, Tracy Swartz and Joe Mahr at the Tribune…

An uptick in youth COVID-19 cases in Illinois in recent weeks is fueling school outbreaks and student quarantines, just days before the start of the Thanksgiving holiday break.

In the past two weeks, the average number of youth cases reported, ages 0-17, has risen from 628 a day to 1,020 a day, which equates to a 62% increase, based on a seven-day average, according to a Tribune analysis of state health department data.

All age groups are seeing major jumps, with a 57% rise in cases for those ages 0-4, a 59% rise for those ages 5-11, and 71% rise for ages 12-17. […]

But the recent figure, accurate through Tuesday, remains notably lower than the pandemic’s highest average daily tally of new youth cases — 1,532 — which was reported exactly a year earlier, on Nov. 16, 2020. […]

“In the last 30 days, one in four Chicago COVID cases have been in children under age 18, whereas over the whole pandemic, it’s been about half that, one in eight. Some of this is because there’s more testing happening, of course, in schools that we’ve talked about, but this is also just a reflection that many children are only now getting the opportunity to be vaccinated.”

* As Jake Griffin notes, help is on the way…

Illinois children ages 5 to 11 are receiving their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at a faster pace than most kids their age across the country.

So far, Illinois Department of Public Health officials say nearly 11.6% of children ages 5 to 11 have received their first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

Meanwhile, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said that by the end of Wednesday, 10% of the nation’s children in that age group will have received their first shots. That amounts to roughly 2.6 million American children.

“For perspective, it took about 50 days for us to reach 10% of adults with one shot,” Zients said at a briefing Wednesday. “And when the polio vaccine was first rolled out for kids in the 1950s, it took about three months to cross 2.5 million shots in arms.”

* Meanwhile, in Opposite Land…

* Get your shots and wear your masks, people…

Mask-wearing is the single most effective public health measure at tackling Covid, reducing incidence by 53%, the first global study of its kind shows. […]

Results from more than 30 studies from around the world were analysed in detail, showing a statistically significant 53% reduction in the incidence of Covid with mask wearing and a 25% reduction with physical distancing.

       

36 Comments - Skeptic - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 9:40 am: Be like Rich. “* Get your shots and wear your masks, people…” - fs - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 9:44 am: 1,000 cases per day is around 1/3 of the average total daily cases. Hopefully that means hospitalizations won’t be as high, and the numbers will peak a lot lower than last winter with kids getting vaccinated. That is, if they get vaccinated. - Amalia - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 9:51 am: shots, mask, socially distance. but with the impending availability of the pills that can help you if you get the virus, it will be important to have tests available. don’t know if home tests can get you in line for the drug protocol, but it may be important to have those readily available as the new drugs have to be taken in the first few days of a positive test. - Cheryl44 - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 9:54 am: Pills notwithstanding, I just don’t want the disease. - Pundent - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 9:57 am: Covid 19 has no better advocate than Tom DeVore. - Jocko - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 9:57 am: ==”Doing the right thing and representing their community== For heaven’s sake, has Tom (or any of the Vandalia school board members) ever attended a covid wake/funeral? - Numbers matter - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:07 am: Sorry to not follow the herd. But downtown Chicago is almost completely mask free in the packed restaurants at night. Wear your mask to get in and do as you please inside. Whatever the merits, very few following the mandate and the world hasn’t stopped turning. The cynic in me says keep this issue front and center so we can ignore the death and shooting in the City. - Wensicia - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:10 am: It’s also important for school staff to get booster shots, as most of us are 8 months past our second vaccination. We lost our school nurse to COVID-19 a few days ago. - Rich Miller - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:11 am: ===restaurants=== Please tell me how one eats and drinks with a mask on? - AnonymousFool - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:11 am: Numbers, politically that is the smart play. I just don’t know if I had the heart to do that. - Cubs in '16 - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:15 am: ===the world hasn’t stopped turning.=== Talk to someone who’s lost a loved one to COVID. Their perspective may be quite different. - SaulGoodman - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:17 am: **Sorry to not follow the herd. …very few following the mandate and the world hasn’t stopped turning.** So… are you following the herd? Or are you wearing a mask? - NonAFSCMEStateEmployeeFromChatham - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:19 am: ==Please tell me how one eats and drinks with a mask on?== In the few times I have gone to restaurants since indoor dining returned I still mask up if I’m chewing food or waiting for food. Although few others seem to do so anymore, despite the signs–and unfortunately the employees refuse to enforce masking. - Soo.... - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:20 am: “ever attended a covid wake/funeral?” A lot have and they’re likely to write that that death off as the person having other health problems. Why, because for every death, they or they know others have got a mild or asymptomatic case. t=That in addition to social media misinformation, and 24/7 “news source” they trust reinforces their belief covid is not that big of a deal. - Anon221 - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:23 am: Just checked our local health department stats. County is back on the warning list. Over 40 new cases in past week. Seeing a post-Halloween surge? - Demoralized - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:27 am: ==I still mask up if I’m chewing food== That’s because you’re afraid of your shadow now. - Watchful eye. - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:51 am: Last weekend I went to a huge event in downtown Chicago where nobody was eating and nobody was wearing a mask. So. no you can’t chew with a mask but the mask mandate is largely in the city. That probably says as much about the vaccine rates as it does about masks. Either way it’s game over for most folks - Watchful eye. - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:53 am: Ignored in the city I meant. Sorry - Thomas Paine - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 10:55 am: === That’s because you’re afraid of your shadow now. === Masks on except while eating or drinking are the rules now, and have been for a long time. They are the prudent recommendations of public health officials. Not wanting to die, and not wanting to kill your loved ones, doesn’t make one a coward. It probably just means you are A) rational and B) have something to live for. Ignoring the rules based on science doesn’t make you a brave freedom fighter either. It’s not just death, BTW, 50% of those who survive COVID infections reportedly have long haul COVID damage, with reports of people under 40 commonly having end stage heart and lung damage that doctors normally don’t see until you are in your 70’s. If you don’t like the mask rules in restaurants, then don’t go to restaurants. Or go to restaurants but follow the rules. You wouldn’t show up at Cracker Barrel with no shirt on and expect to be seated just because you don’t personally believe in dress codes, right? Or be able to smoke just because you think the American Lung Association is run by George Soros? - Watchful eye. - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 11:08 am: For the record I never wear a short to Cracker Barrel - Demoralized - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 11:23 am: ==If you don’t like the mask rules in restaurants, then don’t go to restaurants.== Or, conversely, if you don’t like what people are doing at restaurants with regard to masks then you don’t go to restaurants. See how that works? I only wear masks now if I’m absolutely required to do so. I do it in public indoor places because those are the rules. I don’t, however, wear a mask at a restaurant once I’m seated at my table. If you don’t like it then leave. - H-W - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 11:25 am: So JB is a Tyrant (employment related term for a politician), but DeVore is not a grifter (employment related term for the self-employed). Where’s the difference? - Demoralized - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 11:27 am: ==Where’s the difference?== For $5,000 Devore will tell you. - jimbo - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 11:36 am: I’ve posted this in another thread, but where are people going that are seeing “very few following the mandate”? Downstate? Bars? I travel in Chicago and the collar counties daily and have yet to see this with my own eyes. I could travel right now to any random store and see 90% or more people wearing masks. I’ve been to live music and indoor sports and both of those were 80%+ I don’t hit the gym or the late night bars anymore so I can’t comment on those. - Excitable Boy - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 11:50 am: - keep this issue front and center so we can ignore the death and shooting in the City. - Covid has killed far, far more than violence and shootings in Chicago since it got there. The numbers are very easy to find. - IT Data Guy - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 12:10 pm: – where are people going that are seeing “very few following the mandate”? Downstate? Bars? – The circus that was in Springfield over the past weekend at the BOS Center had little to no mask compliance. Jam packed with kids and adults and very little mask wearing. - NonAFSCMEStateEmployeeFromChatham - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 12:15 pm: ==The circus that was in Springfield over the past weekend== For a minute when I saw the first part of that sentence I thought you were referring to the General Assembly. Then I remembered that last weekend was Ansar Shrine Circus weekend. - H-W - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 12:17 pm: == Where are people going that are seeing very few following the mandate? Downstate? Bars? == Quincy, IL. No one wears masks there. Not even servers. Texas Roadhouse, TJ Maxx, Kohl’s, Old Navy, you name it. No customers, no servers, no one wears masks in Quincy - home of the Tea Party. - Da big bad wolf - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 12:27 pm: === The cynic in me says keep this issue front and center so we can ignore the death and shooting in the City.=== Are masks supposed to make us unconscious or something? So we can’t follow the news? - Anonymous - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 12:36 pm: === Or, conversely, if you don’t like what people are doing at restaurants with regard to masks then you don’t go to restaurants. See how that works? === Since I have preexisting conditions (age, COPD, etc.) that put me at risk of serious illness if I contract COVID-19, I can’t safely go where people routinely flout the public health guidelines. So the self-proclaimed freedom fighters in fact deprive others of their freedom. See how that works? - olddog - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 12:37 pm: Anonymous at 122:36 p.m. was me. - tiredoftheintellectuallydishonest - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 1:11 pm: well said olddog as anonymous…truer words weren’t written. - Thomas Paine - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 1:39 pm: === I do it in public indoor places because those are the rules. I don’t, however, wear a mask at a restaurant once I’m seated at my table. If you don’t like it then leave. === You appear to not understand the rules. Masks are required indoors in restaurants, except while eating or drinking. Same as on an airplane where, if you insist on ignoring the rules, you are going to get banned by the airlines. So no, if I am sitting in a restaurant and you refuse to wear a mask when you are supposed to, I am going to ask the manager to tell you to put your mask on or tell you to leave; if They won’t confront you I tell them if they don’t comp my meal I am going to file a complaint. The last restaurant this happened at I got a $100 meal for free. The time before that, the other patrons put their mask on. Before that, I would just tell people like you face-to-face to put their masks on, but honestly unless their wife is there to talk some sense into them that tends to go bad, so I would not recommend it in every situation to every person. Vaccinated outnumber the unvaccinated 2-1 now in the US, and the economics of it require that one day people like you that refuse to abide by the rules will be excluded from the economy. Even Trump and Catanzara are vaccinated now, Congresswoman Greene wears her Mask on a plane, what are folks still trying to prove, and to whom? - illinifan - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 1:53 pm: Delighted kids can be vaccinated. As any parent knows, children are incubators for so many germs which they love to share. Yes the kids in general don’t get as sick (there are always outliers to every rule though) and many who catch the virus are asymptomatic. Because the child does not have symptoms the parents have no idea the child needs to quarantine, so the kid is busy sharing with every grandma hug and all their friends. I am not surprised by the kid number. This is why it is critical to keep masking even as vaccines for littles are being done. - Enviro - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 1:53 pm: ==…very few following the (mask) mandate and the world hasn’t stopped turning…==@10:07 And therefore the covid- 19virus has not stopped spreading. So I will continue to wear a mask this fall and winter. - NonAFSCMEStateEmployeeFromChatham - Thursday, Nov 18, 21 @ 2:31 pm: I don’t even want to go back to pre-March 2020 normal ever again, and that’s fine with me. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.