COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Erie County, and leaders say it’s being driven by younger people.

What You Need To Know

  • Erie County is concerned about the uptick in cases among young people
  • Officials are noticing a spike in schools
  • Medical, pandemic experts point to variant first detected in the UK and COVID fatigue as potential causes 
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"Many more cases in young people and we're seeing more transmission among young people too," said Erie County Health Commissioner Dr. Gale Burstein.

There were more than 1,200 new cases last week among 20- to 39-year-olds. That accounted for 40% of last week's case count. 

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz says they are seeing a spike in schools.

"There were 504 cases of student, primarily students, some staff but primarily students affiliated with schools Pre-K through grade 12 that were COVID-19 positive and that's a huge jump from the week before when that did break our record of 306 cases," Dr. Burstein said.

One of the sources is team sports.

Since February 1, 165 teams have been put on pause by the Erie County health department.

Currently 24 teams are on pause. Six teams are quarantined.

The pause means at least one person on those teams tested positive for the virus. Some parents believe a structured practice could be a safe place for kids. 

"I think the worst thing we can do is just point a finger and say, ‘it's sports, it's youth sports that are causing this.’ Youth sports are the one thing that are helping kids right now," said Dave Mansell, a parent and high school football coach. 

A pediatric infectious disease expert at Oishei Children’s Hospital believes COVID fatigue is to blame for the latest numbers. He tells Spectrum News wearing masks and social distancing will only help. 

"Decreasing community spread stops outbreaks and it stops youth sports outbreaks. If you have no community spread, you're not going to get an outbreak in a school or sport,” Dr. Mark Hicar said.

Meanwhile, a pandemic expert based out of Boston thinks we're seeing more cases in children because of the variant first detected in the UK. He proposes a four- to six-week lockdown followed by a gradual community-by-community reopening approach based on zero local transmission.

"Everyone is saying it's great, we have these vaccines, we're going to open up and we can act like normal, but in the meantime if we took the greater precautions, we would be able to do that safely rather than opening up and having new waves like what's happening now with the new variants, with kids and young adults being infected," said pandemic expert Yaneer Bar-Yam, who's an MIT-trained American scientist and activist specializing in complex systems. 

The county is also ramping up vaccinations. Leaders say they will be receiving 8,000 doses this week.

An important note is that the county will not be receiving any of the Pfizer vaccine, which is the only vaccine authorized for 16- and 17-year-olds.

You can head to the state's Am I Eligible website to find vaccine sites and schedule appointments.

Erie County plans to roll out its new online and phone appointment system for vaccinations next week.