ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — St. Louis County residents will soon get a better idea of how COVID-19 is impacting children and schools.
County Executive Sam Page announced Monday the St. Louis County Department of Public Health is gathering new data sets for schools as they prepare to return to in-person learning at some point this school year.
By the end of the week, Page said he expects the public will be able to see the new data on the county’s coronavirus website.
The new data will show new COVID-19 cases by ZIP codes along with which school districts are associated with those ZIP codes.
The county’s biweekly breakdown of COVID-19 trends, which dives deeper into the numbers, will offer expanded information on new cases by more specific age ranges. The age groups will be split into 0-4 years, 5-10 years old, 10-14 years old and 15-19 years old. The next biweekly update will be released Friday.
County residents also will get a first look at how many COVID-19 cases involve schools or school-related activities.
“With school underway in various forms, it’s important to make this level of information available to educators across the county so they can make the decision of what the remainder of 2020 will look like and also moving into 2021,” Page said during his scheduled COVID-19 briefing Monday morning.
With many schools heading into their second full week of classes, Page said the county already has seen 75 new COVID-19 cases.
In public schools, where students are mostly participating in virtual-only learning, the majority of cases involve adults: 26 staff members and seven students.
In independent schools, where students are mostly in-person, the cases majority of cases involve students: 39 students and three staff members.
Page also said contact tracers already have identified secondary transmission at a school or school-related activity where one student passed the virus to another.
So far this academic year, 40 schools in the county have reported a COVID-19 case or a close contact with a case involving a household member or parent.
“These reports are increasing as the month of August moves forward,” Page said.
Still, he said the rate of new cases among younger children has remained steady.
“For that reason, we expect to be able to recommend a return to in-school learning for younger students first,” Page said, adding that the county isn’t prepared to give a timeline for when that could happen.
Last week, Page warned about a sharp increase of the virus in older teens ages 15-19 years old.
Since July, the rate of new coronavirus cases among those who are 15-19 years old has steadily increased, but it’s become especially noticeable over the past few weeks.
"For the past few months, the rate of new cases has been the highest in the 20-29-year-old range. More recently, we’ve seen that same rate of increase in the 15-19-year-old range. This is especially noticeable over the past few weeks,” Page said Wednesday, sharing a graphic that demonstrates the increase in cases among those who are 20 and younger.
Page said the St. Louis County Department of Public Health has been recording almost 20 new cases a day among the older teens.
Overall, St. Louis County is reporting about 200 new COVID-19 cases a day, which Page called a “concerning” number.