WAYNE, NJ — In late March, there was concern that during the school’s spring recess many people would be traveling to warmer climates like Florida, and returning with COVID-19, causing a spike in new cases in Wayne and throughout New Jersey.
During the March 18 Board of Education meeting, Dr. David Goldberg, a pediatric infectious disease specialist hired by Wayne schools as a medical consultant on pandemic-related matters, predicted “an uptick” in cases.
He, and Superintendent of Wayne schools, Dr. Mark Toback compared spring recess to the previous school break: winter recess.
RELATED STORY: Will There Be a Spike in COVID Cases After Spring Break?
Here’s a quote from that article:
“Unfortunately, from an epidemiological point of view, I don't think there is much difference at the moment, now than there was back in December,” Dr. Goldberg said. “Yes, public health officials throughout the country warned post- winter break that there would be a surge in COVID cases.”
Goldberg went on to say that the cases were “directly related” to COVID fatigue and people letting their guard down. He feels that the same will happen during spring break.
“We can already see the pictures coming out of Florida,” he said. “And other places where spring break occurs, where it is obvious that social distancing and mask wearing is still not being done.”
COVID data from the state has been trickling into Wayne Township, and on Friday afternoon the final numbers for April were sent to Wayne’s health department. The following information is based on the COVID data shared on the Township website.
- Spring break occurred between March 27 and April 4, with school opening back up on April 5.
- For the full month of March and the first four days of April, Wayne averaged 27 new positive cases per day.
- For the two weeks following the opening of schools on April 5, Wayne averaged just under 25 new cases per day.
- From April 20 through April 30, the numbers dropped precipitously with an average number of new cases of 11.5 per day.
Vaccinations are likely to have played a big role in this drop in new cases. On April 24, Mayor Chris Vergano stated during his township video update that “63% of adult Wayne residents have been given at least one dose, while 43% have received both doses.”
RELATED STORY: Mayor’s COVID Update – The Numbers are Going Down
If there were no vaccinations, would there have been a large spike after spring break? If there were no spring break, would we have seen a drop in cases earlier? We will never know the answer to these hypothetical questions.
What we do know is that the last seven days of April showed 67 new positive cases for Wayne and the last time the numbers were that low, was the first week of November 2020 when there were 57. The following week, the number of new cases jumped to 139. It was early December, when Wayne recorded its largest number of new cases in a one-week period at 314. From there new cases ranged between 271 in one week to 113 in a week until the big drop to 67 as mentioned above.
One could only hope that we are coming down the backend of the second wave, the COVID numbers will continue to drop and somewhere, sometime soon, this pandemic will end.
"break" - Google News
May 03, 2021 at 01:00PM
https://ift.tt/3xD8kuN
Was There a Spike in Wayne COVID Cases After Spring Break? - TAPinto.net
"break" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3dlJq82
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Was There a Spike in Wayne COVID Cases After Spring Break? - TAPinto.net"
Post a Comment