EVANSVILLE — In a week that saw Indiana schools set a new record for COVID-19 cases reported among students, the numbers for area kids up to age 17 don't look that high at first glance.
And in the area's two largest public school systems — the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and Warrick County School Corp. — no switch from in-person to remote learning is being contemplated. The switch has happened in some other parts of Indiana after the winter break.
"The safest place for kids to be is in school," Warrick County Superintendent Todd Lambert said on Tuesday morning. "The thing that will get us in remote won't so much be a specific number; the thing that will hold us up is going to be the availability of staff. If we have an overwhelming number of staff members who are out, that makes it difficult.
"I don't believe we're anywhere near that right now."
More:Indiana schools set new record for COVID-19 cases in first week back from winter break
But as the super-contagious but less-severe omicron variant picks up steam, identified cases among school-age children are skyrocketing as they are in other age groups.
Adolescents and younger children were 15% of the total of new identified cases in Vanderburgh County in the week of Jan. 3-9 — and 21% in Warrick, 10% in Posey and 13% in Gibson. Warrick saw a notable increase, but in Vanderburgh, Gibson and Posey, the proportions of cases linked with kids were actually down or similar to the numbers posted in recent weeks.
Because new identified cases are exploding, those percentages translate into a lot more cases among school-age children.
Vanderburgh County last week more than doubled the all-time high of new COVID-19 cases it had set just the week before — from slightly more than 1,500 to nearly 3,200. The 15% attributed to school-age kids represents a modest increase over the 12% posted the week before — but it also represents about 477 cases.
And that is a 162% increase over the previous week's total for school-age kids.
Mask mandates at the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. and other area school districts have so far remained unchanged, but EVSC steadfastly believes remote learning is not the way to go.
"Throughout the pandemic, individual schools and our central office have worked out coverage plans to allow in-person instruction to continue whenever staff members are not available to work," EVSC said in a written statement Tuesday morning. "We will do everything possible to continue this effort since remote learning is less beneficial for students and problematic for working parents."
Warrick County is hit the hardest
It is in Warrick County that the increase in school-age cases is most striking.
They went from 13% of all cases in Warrick two weeks ago to 21% last week, the highest figure among all age groups. But as in Vanderburgh County, Warrick County's total of reported cases also more than doubled last week. That 21% translated into about 212 total cases — a 248% increase over the previous week's total.
More:Mask mandates return, temporarily, for some Warrick County schools as COVID cases increase
Masks became mandatory at eight of Warrick's 18 schools — one high school, three middle schools and four elementary schools — on Monday.
On Tuesday, Lambert named them on Tu — Tecumseh High School, Tecumseh Middle School, Boonville Middle School, Castle North Middle School, Chandler Elementary School, Loge Elementary School, Lynnville Elementary School and Tennyson Elementary School.
The change will last for two school weeks, after which the mask requirement will be reevaluated.
COVID-19 data for individual schools are available on the Indiana State Department of Health's statewide dashboard (coronavirus.in.gov) by going to the School tab.
It shows, for example, that Tecumseh High School in Warrick County added eight more student positive cases last week to go to a total of 49 this school year. Tecumseh Middle School added no new student cases. Before winter break, the mask mandate had only been reinstated in those two schools.
The Warrick County School Corporation switched to optional masking in early November, with the caveat that would change if case numbers reached 2 percent of students and staff or if 5 percent of students and staff were quarantined.
Events are moving swiftly, Lambert said Tuesday.
"I do anticipate that we will have at least two to four schools this week hit those (numerical) thresholds," he said. "They'll go to masks."
Lambert declined to name them "because I don't know how the day will transpire — you know, if the cases go up and down."
"I'd like to say I'm confident that they're going to escape it — but just the way cases are going across the region, across the state and across the country, I think it's going to get a little worse here in the short run before it gets better," he said.
The Warrick superintendent is prepared for it to get worse.
"It's possible that all of our schools at some point during this omicron phase may be in a temporary mask-required setting," he said.
New cases occurring in younger ages
The new record for COVID-19 cases that was reported among students in a single week in Indiana last week involved more than 6,500 students testing positive in the week after the winter break.
The state reported more than 15,000 cases in a single day for the first time last week. Cases in Indiana schools had been on the rise before the winter break, and there were concerns that socializing over the holidays would fuel even more positive cases among students.
While some of the new student cases reported in Monday's weekly update dated back to previous weeks, the vast majority were attributed to last week when students started returning to classrooms statewide. The case count could climb even higher next Monday since, for many schools, this is their first full week back.
More:Hospitals hanging in there as Vanderburgh County sets new COVID-19 records
Another 686 new cases were reported among teachers and 884 among other staff members. Both are by far the highest totals for those populations reported this school year.
Because teachers are vaccinated at higher rates than students and the general population, infection rates among them had remained relatively low and stable this school year. Omicron is proving to be far more contagious than previous strains, although public health experts say vaccinated individuals are likely to have milder cases.
Age is less of a factor now, said Micah Pollak, an Indiana University Northwest professor and a leading statewide COVID-19 analyst.
"Before omicron, being young meant you were less likely to get infected. Now with omicron, the chance of getting infected doesn't seem to depend on age much," Pollak said. "So where cases are occurring are mostly among the less vaccinated groups, which are younger people."
There is support for that theory in the latest set of data in Vanderburgh County.
The 15% of cases attributed to kids 17 and under is surpassed only by the 25% linked to people in their 20s and the 19% attributed to people between the ages of 30 and 39.