CHARLOTTE, N.C. (StudyFinds.org) Since the beginning of the pandemic scientists, doctors, and everyone in between has wondered how long robust immunity persists following recovery from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Now, researchers from Yale University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte have some deflating news. They report strong COVID-19 protection after recovery does not last very long.
Reinfection can reasonably happen in three months or less, explains lead study author Jeffrey Townsend, the Elihu Professor of Biostatistics at the Yale School of Public Health, in auniversity release. Therefore, those who have been naturally infectedshould get vaccinated. Previous infection alone can offer very little long-term protection against subsequent infections.
Study authors reached these less than ideal conclusions by analyzing reinfection and immunological data collected from close viral relatives of SARS-CoV-2 that cause common colds.
They also included immunological datasets from both SARS-CoV-1 and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). By leveraging evolutionary principles, researchers believe they were able to accurately model COVID-19 reinfection risk over time.
While reinfections among those who have already recovered from COVID-19 are already somewhat common, the research team warns such events will likely become even more commonplaceas more variants emerge.
We tend to think about immunity as being immune or not immune. Our study cautions that we instead should be more focused onthe risk of reinfectionthrough time, explains study co-leader Alex Dornburg, assistant professor of bioinformatics and genomics at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. As new variants arise, previous immune responses become less effective at combating the virus. Those who were naturally infected early in the pandemic are increasingly likely to become reinfected in the near future.
According to the research, the reinfection risk associated with COVID-19 is very similar to that of endemic coronaviruses.
Just likecommon colds, from one year to the next you may get reinfected with the same virus. The difference is that, during its emergence in this pandemic, COVID-19 has proven to be much more deadly. Prof. Townsend adds.
Due to the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to evolve and reinfect, it, too, is likely to transition from pandemic to an endemic disease, Prof. Dornburg notes.
A hallmark of the modern world is going to bethe evolution of new threatsto human health, Prof. Townsend concludes. Evolutionary biology which provided the theoretical foundations for these analyses is traditionally considered a historical discipline. However, our findings underscore its important role in informing decision-making, and provide a crucial stepping stone toward robust knowledge of our prospects of resistance to SARS-CoV-2 reinfection.
Thefindingsappear inThe Lancet Microbe.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice started Thursdays virtual COVID-19 briefing by reading 97 deaths, the most hes ever had to read, the governor said. Its awful. Its really, really sad. This is the impact of the surge, Justice said. Despite overall COVID case numbers going down in the state, were going to continue lose more and more, Justice said.
There are 60 outbreaks in schools, in 24 counties, with nearly 700 students testing positive for COVID, Gov. Justice reported.
Payments have begun going out to around 40 hospitals around the state as part of the Save our Care program aimed at helping medical facilities pay overtime and retention bonuses to staff, state officials said.
The governor also reminded state residents that the West Virginia Rental Assistance program is still available for renters and landlords. Nearly 10,000 applications have been received so far, totaling $46 million. The state has $200 million earmarked for the program.
The final winners in the Do it for Babydog vaccine sweepstakes will be announced Friday, culminating with a Corvette being given away on Friday night in Charleston, Justice said.
The governor reminded residents to get their flu shots, saying he got his this week.
Justice also announced that he will be calling for a special session of the state legislature to focus on congressional redistricting. The session will start on October 11.
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Local epidemiologists and researchers say the Hawaii Department of Health has continually rebuffed their requests for data throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and that the departments latest decision to scale back the information it has been releasing to the public daily on COVID-19 deaths is just the latest example of the departments lack of openness.
All I can tell you is how absolutely frustrated we are, said DeWolfe Miller, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor at the University of Hawaii.
State officials have made a wealth of data available online, allowing the public to track things like the daily increases in vaccination rates among the counties and age groups, how many COVID-19 patients are occupying the beds in intensive care units and what racial and ethnic groups have been most impacted by the latest surge in cases.
That data has taken on increasing importance in peoples daily lives as top government officials base major public policy decisions on wonky metrics such as case positivity rates, ICU capacity and vaccination coverage.
But researchers say that the more granular data they need to better analyze and answer pandemic-related questions is being withheld.
For instance, researchers were hoping to get data on the number of people who were hospitalized with COVID-19 broken down by vaccination status and age, which could help to better calculate the efficacy of the vaccines on different age groups, said Sumner La Croix, a research fellow at the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization and economics professor at UH Manoa. But he said state health officials have declined to provide it.
What is really clear to me is that DOH doesnt really want any independent investigators actually looking at the data, said La Croix. They really dont want anyone second guessing their decisions.
Department of Health officials didnt respond to a request for comment about the criticism, which reached a new height this weekend when the department announced that it would no longer be sending out the detailed information it had been providing for months about COVID-related deaths. A department spokesman, in an email to the media on Sunday, cited the volume of COVID-19 cases and COVID-19 related deaths as the reason for no longer sending out the information, even though case counts have declined markedly over the past four weeks.
The daily emails included the age range of the person who died, the county where they died, hospitalization status, gender and whether they had underlying conditions.
The rationale baffled experts like La Croix and Miller who questioned why the department didnt just reach out to them or other departments if they were having trouble reviewing and releasing data.
We would be more than delighted, we would be ecstatic to be able to collaborate in a more productive way with data, said Miller.
Brooks Baehr, a spokesman for the Department of Health, released a subsequent statement saying that the department was just scaling back the frequency of reporting in order to focus on data quality.
Monique Chyba, a UH mathematics professor who has been generating forecast models of COVID-19 cases in Hawaii, said she has had a similar experience with the Department of Health. Shes been working with the Hawaii Pandemic Applied Modeling Work Group, a voluntary partnership of Hawaii-based epidemiologists, scientists and health professionals. She said that most of the the data theyve had to rely upon is whats been made publicly available on the states websites and because a lot of it is aggregated, its often not useful.
Chyba said the problems that researchers and data analysts have faced in Hawaii are not unique when it comes to pandemic modeling and that there just werent many data protocols in place to better facilitate the work when the pandemic hit.
We came into the pandemic with no protocol in our collection, data storage and data release, she said.
But she said there was also a lack of collaboration. There was no communication between (the Department of Health) and us and I dont know why, she said. I cannot say why they didnt come to us and say, What do you need? We had a few discussions, but for sure, not enough.
For instance, Chyba said that her group could have helped model infections and hospitalizations in children if they were able to get the data.
The Department of Health does appear to be creating more protocols relating to the release of data. Before the pandemic, the department had created an internal Data Governance Committee. According to a policy document approved by Department of Health Director Libby Char in March 2021, the committee is a decision-making body with authority and responsibility to make binding decisions for how information is managed, accessed, and released across the DOH enterprise.
But the committee meets in private and none of the outside experts interviewed for this story were aware of the committee, which has been setting policies about the release of data.
For instance, the Department of Health cited the committees small numbers policy for denying a recent request by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser for COVID-related deaths broken down by ZIP codes. The newspaper was hoping to look for correlations between COVID deaths and vaccination rates. This information is released by jurisdictions throughout the country, but state health officials said releasing it for Hawaii could lead to privacy violations by making it possible to determine someones identity.
Miller said that didnt make any sense.
Its not a believable explanation for why they are (withholding) this, he said. And why they have this committee without telling anybody that it existed I just find that puzzling.
Meanwhile, the Department of Health on Wednesday reported seven new coronavirus-related deaths, though didnt provide any additional information on the deceased. There were 168 new confirmed and probable infections statewide, bringing the states totals since the start of the pandemic to 818 fatalities and 80,582 cases.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has raised many questions about where and how we work, but one question has become more pressing for job seekers in recent months: do they need to include their Covid-19 vaccination status on their resume?
In September, President Biden said that he is asking the U.S. Department of Labor to issue a rule requiring employers with 100 or more workers to require vaccines or weekly testing, a mandate that will impact over 80 million workers when it is issued, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. It's unclear whether the federal vaccine directive will include fully remote workers. The announcement followed a summer that saw several large companies including Microsoft and McDonald's issue their own vaccine mandates for employees.
Even before Biden's announcement, many companies created their own vaccine mandates in an effort to make in-person work as safe as possible for employees. Hiring managers have consequently grappled with how to comply with vaccine mandates without making job candidates feel uncomfortable.
ResumeBuilder.com interviewed 1,250 hiring managers in August and found that 33% would automatically eliminate resumes that don't include a Covid-19 vaccination status. On top of that, 69% of hiring managers said they are more likely to hire someone who has already been vaccinated against Covid-19, and 63% said they prefer to see a job candidate's vaccination status on their resume.
Taking their cue from the Biden administration, some companies have begun requesting vaccine information from their employees and introducing their vaccine requirements during the hiring process. One executive steering such efforts is Maria Selvaggio, the vice president of people at M1 Finance who has previously led recruiting efforts at Grubhub, Google and Groupon.
In the spring, when Covid vaccines became more widely available, Selvaggio tells CNBC Make It her team "didn't see vaccination statuses on resumes at all," but recently, it's become a "more and more frequent" occurrence. "Ultimately it's up to the individual whether or not they're going to include their vaccination status on their resume, but they should know that they're going to be required to share that information at some point in the hiring process," she says. "As more offices adopt vaccine mandates, disclosing your vaccination status on your resume can only help you in the interview process."
Job seekers can include their vaccination status as a short line, for example, writing "fully vaccinated" underneath their contact information or as a footnote at the bottom of their resume where it's "prominent and easy to find," Selvaggio says.
Offering vaccination information either in a resume or initial interview upfront also minimizes headaches for hiring managers, who have to be extremely careful about the legal consequences of when and how they ask applicants about their vaccination status. "What we as conservative employment lawyers advise is not to ask candidates 'Are you vaccinated?' because you run the risk of somebody saying that is a discriminatory question," Walter Foster, an employment lawyer with more than 30 years of experience, says. "But if a job applicant brings it up or has their vaccination status on their resume, that's a voluntary disclosure by the person and doesn't have legal ramifications."
Companies can, however, mention their vaccine policy in a job description or interview with a potential hire and ask if they have any concerns with the rule. "It is totally fine for a company to tell a candidate, 'Hey, we have a mandatory vaccine policy, will that be a problem?'" Foster says. "If a candidate isn't vaccinated or can't comply with the policy, the employer could then ask if the candidate would need reasonable accommodation."
Foster encourages job seekers to consider noting their vaccination status on their resume as it signals to employers that they are sensitive to a challenging issue companies have faced the past few months. "I think volunteering that information could elevate someone's chances for securing an offer," he says. "Most employers will see that and think, 'Hey, this person is responsible, they're aware of vaccine mandates and will be compliant.'"
Still,Magalie Ren, the CEO of Workplace Catalyst, a professional coaching and workplace training firm, warns that promoting vaccination statuses on resumes could create a "dangerous, discriminatory" job market against people with religious beliefs or medical conditions that prevent them from getting the Covid vaccine.
"There's been a renewed interest in inclusivity when it comes to recruiting and hiring, but if we begin to tell job seekers, 'Put your vaccination status on your resume,' that potentially excludes people that haven't taken the vaccine yet, but might consider doing so if it's a job requirement," she says. "It just creates another barrier to job entry, and what we need to be focusing on right now is how to foster inclusion, not driving polarization."
It's more beneficial, she adds, for companies to outline their vaccine policies in a job description or email communication. Echoing Foster's advice, Ren also says applicants should feel empowered to initiate conversations about vaccine mandates during a job interview. "You can ask, 'For my own clarity, What are your company's requirements around the Covid-19 vaccine?'" she suggests. "It shows you're willing to have a potentially uncomfortable conversation and that you're open to being transparent and whether you're pro-vaccine or against it, transparency is really important."
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A UW epidemiologist said we need at least 85% of the total population to be immune or vaccinated against COVID-19 to reach herd immunity.
SEATTLE With the COVID-19 delta variant continuing to spread across Washington state and the country, some health experts said, in theory, more people becoming infected with the disease means reaching herd immunity faster.
But infection is only one part of the equation.
Immunity can occur from two main sources, vaccine or infection. And of course, we would like immunity to be achieved through vaccines, we don't want people to be infected and overrun our hospitals, and some of them will die," said Ali Mokdad, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington.
Because we still don't know how long antibodies last after infection, Mokdad said it is hard to count the number of people who have been infected with the delta variant towards herd immunity levels.
There is also the fact that children under 12 are still unable to get vaccinated against COVID-19, which leaves an entire part of the population that can not get the vaccine and that we don't want to become infected.
Mokdad said based on what we know about COVID-19, we need at least 85% of the total population to be immune or vaccinated to reach herd immunity.
As of Thursday morning, the Washington State Department of Health reported 58.4% of the total population was fully vaccinated against COVID-19. While 56.2% of the total U.S. population was fully vaccinated as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, there are still many people who are unwilling to get the vaccine.
Thirty percent of those who are eligible are not willing to take the vaccine. So yes, we have a long way to get to the immunity, but it's possible," said Mokdad, who added children getting the vaccine will be a big game-changer.
But he warned people must do their part to get vaccinated before we see a new variant.
Right now, in the United States, we have a lot of infections from [the delta varriant], said Mokdad. Previously, if you are infected from alpha or any other variant, there is not much cross-immunity from the previous version. So, the idea is to get herd immunity through vaccines.
He stressed that despite the cooler months and people being inside more, his projections do not show a surge in cases this winter, thanks in part to boosters, but also if 95% of Americans continue to wear a mask when they can't social distance.
WASHINGTON Pfizer and BioNTech asked federal regulators on Thursday to authorize emergency use of their coronavirus vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, a move that could help protect more than 28 million people in the United States.
The companies say they are submitting data supporting the change to the Food and Drug Administration. The agency has promised to move quickly on the request and has tentatively scheduled a meeting on Oct. 26 to consider it. A ruling is expected between Halloween and Thanksgiving.
With new cases in children in the U.S. continuing to be at a high level, this submission is an important step in our ongoing effort against Covid-19, Pfizer said on Thursday.
Parents across the United States are anxiously awaiting the regulators decision, which could affect family life and the operation of schools. Clearance depends not only on the strength of the clinical trial data, but on whether the companies can prove to regulators that they are able to properly manufacture a new pediatric formulation.
Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting F.D.A. commissioner, said last week that children might require a different dosage or formulation from that used in an older pediatric population or adults.
Pfizer has proposed giving children one-third of the adult dosage. That might require adding more diluent to each injection or using a different vial or syringe. The company was expected to describe the method it intended to use in its submission to the Food and Drug Administration.
Regulators will have to examine the purity and stability of mass-manufactured doses of the vaccine and determine that it matches the quality and potency of doses given to children in clinical trials. A pediatric dose will also most likely require new labeling, with special codes that would allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to track specific lots in case of reports of serious side effects.
Children rarely become severely ill from Covid-19, but the Delta variant drove nearly 30,000 of them to hospitals in August. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, nearly 5.9 million Americans younger than 18 have been infected with the coronavirus. Of the roughly 500 Americans under 18 who have died, about 125 were children ages 5 to 11.
It really bothers me when people say kids dont die of Covid, said Dr. Grace Lee, an associate chief medical officer at Stanford Childrens Health who also leads a key advisory committee to the C.D.C. They die of Covid. Its heartbreaking.
About one in every six Americans infected since the beginning of the pandemic was under 18 years old. But with the surge of the Delta variant, children accounted for as many as one in four infections last month, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of Pfizers vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds in May. Since then, more than 8.2 million children in that age group have received at least one dose, and more than 6.7 million have been fully vaccinated.
Oct. 7, 2021, 3:31 p.m. ET
The infection rate in the United States is currently falling, prompting hope that the Delta variant is ebbing. But public health experts worry that the onset of colder weather could result in increased transmission.
Although federal regulators are under enormous pressure to quickly review Pfizers application, they also face other pressing decisions. Next week, they might rule on whether people who received the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccines should receive booster shots, both potentially contentious decisions.
Public health experts have said that the agencys review of a Pfizer pediatric dose would be closely scrutinized. According to a recent survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, roughly a third of parents of children between ages 5 and 11 said they would wait and see before allowing their children to receive such a shot.
Dr. Walt A. Orenstein, an epidemiologist at Emory University and a former director of the U.S. immunization program, said that given the competing pressures on the Food and Drug Administration to make vaccine decisions quickly but carefully, public discussion was essential.
He said many parents were wavering between fear of Covid-19 and fear of side effects of a pediatric vaccine. If they were less worried about the consequences of coronavirus infection, he said, safety would be their top priority. If they were more worried, the vaccines effectiveness would matter more. As with other vaccines, Dr. Orenstein said, pediatricians would play a critical role in easing parental anxiety.
Pfizers clinical trial for children was not intended to draw meaningful conclusions about the vaccines ability to prevent disease or hospitalizations. Instead, researchers looked at antibody levels, comparing them with levels in adults that had conferred high protection. Regulators are expected to compare those immune responses to vaccine efficacy data in the adult population.
The State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.
The trial included 2,268 children, two-thirds of whom had received two doses of the vaccine three weeks apart. The remaining volunteers were injected with two doses of saltwater placebo. Regulators over the summer asked for the trial size to be expanded to 3,000 children.
At a virtual panel on Covid-19 last week, Norman Baylor, the former director of the Food and Drug Administrations vaccines office, said that the number of participants in Pfizer pediatric study was noticeably small. The adult trial involved about 44,000 people.
It does beg the question of the size, given what we have for the adults: Would one expect more for the pediatric population? he said. They may be thinking, Well, we know the vaccine is safe, because look at how many people we had in the adults. But as we know, things may shift in that pediatric population.
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been tied to increased risks of myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle; and pericarditis, inflammation of the lining around the heart, particularly in younger men. In August, the Food and Drug Administration published results from an analysis of Pfizer-BioNTechs vaccine that used a U.S. health care claims database and found that the risk of the conditions in 16- and 17-year-old vaccinated boys could be as high as 1 in 5,000.
The cases in the database were unconfirmed, but they were considered a reasonable estimate of possible risk, the agency wrote.
A lower dose of the vaccine for children could alleviate those concerns.
Officials in a number of countries have recommended a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for children ages 12 and older, which would provide partial protection from the virus, but without the potential effects occasionally observed after two doses.
Amy Schoenfeld Walker and Simone Landon contributed reporting.
NEW YORK (AP) Can I get the flu and COVID-19 vaccines at the same time?
Yes, you can get the shots in the same visit.
When COVID-19 vaccines were first rolling out in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended waiting 14 days between the shots and other immunizations as a precaution. But the agency has since revised its guidelines and says the wait is unnecessary.
The CDC and other health experts point to past experience showing that vaccines work as they should and any side effects are similar whether the shots are given separately or in the same visit.
We have a history of vaccinating our kids with multiple vaccines, says flu specialist Richard Webby of St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital.
Staying up to date on all vaccinations will be especially important this year, experts say.
Since people were masked and staying home, last years flu season barely registered. This year, its unclear how intense the flu season will be with more places reopening.
The worry is that if they both circulate at the same time, were going to have this sort of twin-demic, Webby says. The concern with that is that its going to put extra strain on an already strained health care system.
The CDC recommends an annual flu vaccine for everyone 6 months and older, and says ideally everyone should be vaccinated by the end of October. It takes 10 to 14 days for the flu vaccine to take full effect so if you wait until the flu begins circulating, your body may not have time to build up protection. Vaccine options vary by age but include several types of shots or a nasal spray version.
One caution: COVID-19, colds and flu all share similar symptoms so if you feel ill, the CDC says to postpone a vaccination appointment until youre better to avoid getting others sick.
___
The AP is answering your questions about the coronavirus in this series. Submit them at: FactCheck@AP.org. Read more here:
Am I fully vaccinated without a COVID-19 vaccine booster?
Is the delta variant of the coronavirus worse for kids?
What can employers do if workers avoid COVID-19 vaccines?
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 235.4 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.8 million. More than 6.34 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
The Australian state of Victoria has logged the highest number of COVID-19 cases of any state in the country since the start of the pandemic.
New Zealand is set to introduce COVID-19 vaccine certificates from next month to 'lessen risks at what are currently considered high-risk settings', Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a news conference.
The effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine dropped to 47% from 88% six months after the second dose, according to data published yesterday.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have warned against travel to Armenia, Austria, Barbados, Croatia and Latvia because of COVID-19 concerns.
COVID-19 vaccines are less effective in people with weakened immune systems, three small Italian studies have shown.
A number of Asian economies, including Thailand, South Korea and Australia are in talks to buy Merck's experimental antiviral pill for COVID-19.
The Kremlin has urged people to get vaccinated against COVID-19, as confirmed cases in Russia rise to their highest levels since January.
New confirmed cases and COVID-19 deaths have risen to their highest level in Hungary since the start of the fourth wave of the pandemic, government data showed yesterday.
Daily new confirmed COVID-19 cases per million people in selected countries
Image: Our World in Data
Negotiations on a proposal to temporarily waive intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines and therapies at the World Trade Organization are deadlocked, according to sources after a meeting on the topic.
The proposal was introduced a year ago by South Africa and India, with its supporters arguing it will save lives by allowing developing countries to produce COVID-19 vaccines. More than 100 countries, including the United States, back the waiver, but opponents say it's not clear a waiver will overcome other issues, such as raw material scarcity or supply chain challenges.
The WTO's Director-General, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has identified finding solutions to vaccine inequity as a priority for the organization.
The European Union's drugs regulator has said people with weakened immune systems should get a third dose of an mRNA vaccine from either Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna. However, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) left it up to member states to decide if the wider population should have a booster.
It means the EU joins the United States, Britain and Israel where regulators have approved the use of the Pfizer/BioNTech boosters. Israel is the only country currently deploying them across the whole population.
The EMA said a third dose should be given at least 26 days after the second dose.
The COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship is a coalition of 85 global leaders, hosted by the World Economic Forum. Its mission: Join hands in support of social entrepreneurs everywhere as vital first responders to the pandemic and as pioneers of a green, inclusive economic reality.
Its COVID Social Enterprise Action Agenda, outlines 25 concrete recommendations for key stakeholder groups, including funders and philanthropists, investors, government institutions, support organizations, and corporations. In January of 2021, its members launched its 2021 Roadmap through which its members will roll out an ambitious set of 21 action projects in 10 areas of work. Including corporate access and policy change in support of a social economy.
For more information see the Alliance website or its impact story here.
Written by
Joe Myers, Writer, Formative Content
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Ask us about COVID-19: What questions do you have about the coronavirus and vaccines?
South Jersey has overtaken North Jersey as the leader in COVID infections. Throughout most of the pandemic, North Jersey led the state.
Were seeing the opposite of what we experienced a year ago, New Jersey Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli said Monday during the states COVID briefing.
As of Sept. 30, the Garden States positivity rate was 4.01%. When broken down by region, South Jerseys positivity rate was 5.15%. In Central Jersey, the rate was 4.68% and in North Jersey, its 3.06%.
The positivity rate is the proportion of tests that return with positive results. Five percent is the threshold at which the rate is considered too high, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
One year ago, the positivity rate in South Jersey was 2.56%.
The best we can look at is the gatherings for the summer, primarily in the southern portion of the state, Persichilli added, Thats the only thing I think we can point to specifically. Thats where most of the positivity is.
Dr. Ed Lifshitz, the health departments medical director, concurred, adding, There are a whole bunch of reasons why that might be happening.
Certainly, part of it has to do with the fact that over the summer months, thats where people tended to congregate more, he said.
Officials said they would be watching infections in the southern part of the state while investigating other causes for the increase in infections. Among other factors prompting the increase include the low number of vaccinations, as well as cases in adjoining states trending upward, according to the health department.
