![]() ![]() The camp didn’t check people’s vaccination status or require masks indoors, according to the department. The Illinois Department of Public Health said all the campers were eligible for the vaccine, but only “a handful” of campers and staff had received it. In Illinois, health officials said 85 teens and adults at a Christian youth camp in mid-June tested positive, including an unvaccinated young adult who was hospitalized, and some people from the camp attended a nearby conference, leading to 11 additional cases. ![]() “In some cases, entire families are sick,” pastor Bruce Wesley said on the church’s Facebook page. The pastor of Clear Creek Community Church in League City said the outbreak happened in two waves, first at the camp and then when people returned home in late June. In the Houston area, health officials reported more than 130 youths and adults tested positive for the virus in cases connected to a church camp. Ideally, he said, camps would require vaccinations for adults and for campers who are old enough, and would take other measures such as serving meals in shifts, putting fewer youngsters in the cabins and requiring anyone unvaccinated to wear masks indoors. He said he had his doubts that some camps “thought through all the implications of camping during COVID.” William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University infectious disease specialist, said he isn’t surprised by the outbreaks as camps reopen this year after being closed last summer. You have people who say it is all a government plot.”ĭr. ![]() You have people who say what is the big deal. “You have people who still say it is not real. “It has been a challenge since the first case,” she said. JoAnn Martin, administrator of the public health agency in surrounding Pettis County, lamented the difficulty in getting people to take the virus seriously and get vaccinated. Staff members at the camp did not return a call for comment. It kind of seems like we finally felt comfortable and it happened,” Ford said, adding that her daughter ultimately tested negative.įord said she definitely plans to get her daughter vaccinated but hadn’t done so because there wasn’t much time between the start of camp and the government’s authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for 12- to 15-year-olds in May.Ī note posted on the camp’s Facebook page showed that the camp nurse and several other staff members and volunteers were among those infected. Gwen Ford, a 43-year-old science teacher from Adrian, Missouri, was cautiously optimistic when she eyed the dropping case numbers in the spring and signed up her 12-year-old daughter for the West Central Christian Service Camp.īut one day after the girl got home from a week of playing in the pool, worshipping with friends and bunking in a dormitory, Ford got an email about an outbreak and then learned that her daughter’s camp buddy was infected. The rise in many places has been blamed on too many unvaccinated people and the highly contagious delta variant. has reversed course, surging more than 60% over the past two weeks from an average of about 12,000 a day to around 19,500, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The clusters have come as the number of newly confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the U.S. In some cases the outbreaks have spread from the camp to the broader community. ![]() has seen a string of COVID-19 outbreaks tied to summer camps in recent weeks in places such as Texas, Illinois, Florida, Missouri and Kansas, in what some fear could be a preview of the upcoming school year. Those cases happened in Schuyler and Adams counties.The U.S. So that they can stop the spread of it," said Tara Bealor, Adams County Health Department public health nurse. Or like the Schuyler Heath Department has requested that they do. "So, the people that were there it can be stopped if they would quarantine like we've requested that they do. RELATED: Naperville warehouse failed to contain deadly COVID outbreak, OSHA saysĪnd there's now another outbreak, after some of those at the camp attended a nearby conference, which led to 11 more cases. One unvaccinated young adult was hospitalized, and 85 tested positive, officials said. The Illinois Department of Public Health said masks were not required indoors, and "only a handful" of campers and staff at "The Crossing Camp" in Quincy were vaccinated, although they were eligible for the shot, WGEM reported. A COVID outbreak at a church camp downstate is now linked to nearly 100 cases of the virus. "Only a handful" of those at "The Crossing Camp" were vaccinated against COVID-19, despite their eligibility, the Illinois Department of Public Health said. ![]()
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