COVID Cases Surge In Worcester Schools; Officials Urge Vaccination
WORCESTER (CBS) - The city of Worcester is seeing a surge in COVID cases, and there are clusters breaking out in schools.
As parents picked up their children at dismissal time at Union Hill School on Friday, there was concern about the increase. "The virus is still going on. People are getting vaccinated, but the numbers are going up," said parent Valeria Hoyos.
Worcester is seeing the trend that's occurring across the state. Last week alone, 137 children and 31 staff members tested positive in the schools, and it's an upward trend.
"They were averaging five cases a day a month ago. Now, it's 25 cases a day, so that's a fivefold increase, " said Dr. Michael Hirsh the medical director with Worcester Public Health. He attributes some of the increase to unvaccinated children coming to school, and there is hesitancy among some parents.
"I'm a little hesitant because it's so new," said parent Yolanda Lopez. "I want to wait until more kids get vaccinated and make sure there's no side effects, then I'll think of doing it."
The city has so far held 140 vaccination clinics in the schools with more scheduled. Just this week 100,000 more masks were ordered, but Superintendent Maureen Binienda says there's still been a surge. "People are getting tired of covid; they're getting together in larger groups and not being as cautious in some ways."
In Massachusetts last week, there were 6,879 covid cases among students and 1,105 among staff. The nearly 8,000 cases would be a record, but it compared to a previous two-week count because of the Thanksgiving break.
"The vaccine is the ticket out of this pandemic," said Dr. Hirsh at a city press conference. It's a message city officials are trying to stress in a city with a 57% vaccination rate they're desperate to increase.
Some parents hope it resonates. "It's the way to go. To get rid of this pandemic all of us have to be vaccinated," said parent Nicholas Kahiu.
