Children have highest COVID-19 case rates in Delaware for the 1st time – WDEL 1150AM

Children in Delaware account for more cases of COVID-19 than any other age group this week.

"For the first time, we are seeing that the 5-to-17 age range has the highest case rate statewide," Dr. Karyl Rattay, director of the state's Division of Public Health said.

Rattay admitted, that's in part, because more testing is happening in Delaware's schools through a partnership with testing agent Quidel.

"So we're catching and finding more cases in our schoolers, earlier, which is very helpful for the spread," she said.

Children under 12 are not eligible for vaccination. It's unclear how many of the children, who represent new cases of COVID are symptomatic.

"We are definitely seeing higher levels of cases, where we have lower vaccination rates, like in the rest of the country.

A close second behind pediatric cases of COVID are young adults ages 18 to 34, which has been a challenging age to target for vaccination. That age group is just 50% fully vaccinated.

"Typically, almost every week for the past year, it's been our 18 to 34 year olds who have the highest case rates, and this age group still has higher case rates," she said.

The Delta variant, which has been more contagious than other variant strains so far, accounts for 99% of variant strains sampled in Delaware right now, according to DPH data.

While the entire state is seeing elevated levels of COVID-19, Rattay singled out certain areas of concern.

"Some of our hottest spots right now include large areas of Sussex and western and southern Kent County as well as the city of Wilmington," she said. "Our highest rates do correlate with the areas where we have the lowest vaccination."

According to data presented on September 28, 2021 Delaware has 456 new cases of COVID-19 on a seven-day moving average compared to just 20 cases in June. The state's test positivity rate stands at 7.3% with testing rates up 2.2% from the week prior.

"We do expect that trend to continue," she said as many workplaces, including state government, have or soon will require regular COVID-19 testing for unvaccinated workers.

Hospitalizations total 215 with 38 critically ill, according to the DPH data. While that's far lower than the high of 476 hospitalizations Delaware saw in January, Gov. John Carney cautioned:

"Hospitals are more fully engaged with elective surgeries...so the hospitals have encountered challenges. Hospitals in the lower part of our state in Kent and Sussex County have stopped elective surgeries and other provisions, which is not a good thing, because they have more people in the hospital with COVID19 than they can accommodate those surgeries," said Carney.

Despite case rates and hospitalizations far higher than they were in June, Rattay noted cases are starting to level off.

"Last week, our case rate increased less than 1% from the previous week, which is great because when we last had our press briefing in August, the case rates had increased almost 80% over the previous week. Positivity, hospitalization, and death rates have also decreased statewide," she said.

Carney continues to push the vaccine with DPH focusing on those who are vaccine hesitant.

'The bottom line is...if we're going to beat COVID-19 we've got to get more people vaccinated. It's really that simple," he said.

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Children have highest COVID-19 case rates in Delaware for the 1st time - WDEL 1150AM