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At Camp Pontiac, a seven-week student overnight camp in Copake, the Columbia County Department of Health is grappling with 23 campers who tested positive for COVID-19.
County health department director Jack Mabb said he currently has a team of nurses in the camp to assess the outbreak, which was reported on Saturday. All of the children were under 12 to receive the coronavirus vaccine. Infected campers are either at home or isolated at camp if they are coming from out of state. He said about 65 other campers who were in contact with those infected have been sent home to quarantine and are expected to return after two weeks.
The recent outbreak was unusual. “We were sort of riding with zero and one [cases]”Mabb said on Tuesday.” Today we have six [new cases] under the peak hitting the capital region. Columbia is a much smaller county than, say, Albany County, so with our numbers proportionally, we see a peak as they are, and like much of the rest of the Hudson Valley.
Columbia County reports 14 active COVID cases; While Camp Pontiac reports 23 cases, only two of those infected campers reside in the county. The remaining cases were counted among their respective counties across New York and neighboring states.
The sudden increase in positive cases comes as 57% of Columbia County’s population over the age of 12 have been fully vaccinated, slightly above the state average of 56%. With a vaccine not yet approved for children under 12 and the more infectious delta variant now accounting for more than half of all COVID-19 cases in the United States, the Hudson Valley faces the challenge of protect largely unvaccinated children from the coronavirus. While COVID typically does not affect young children as severely as adults, according to health officials, serious illness can occur. A 13-year-old Brooklyn girl who attended a Hasidic summer camp in Ulster County died shortly after returning home, county officials confirmed. The cause of his death is still under investigation.
Nationally, summer camps have become a hotspot for many COVID-19 outbreaks in states such as Missouri, Kansas and Florida. Some of the largest increases related to summer camps – day camps and overnight camps – have occurred in Texas and Illinois, where more than 130 people in a religious camp in Houston and 85 others in a camp in Houston. Illinois have tested positive for the virus.
While overall COVID-19 cases are on the rise in the Capital Region and parts of the Hudson Valley, with the exception of Camp Pontiac in Columbia County, very few cases were allocated to summer camps.
This has been the mission of the American Camp Association (ACA), a national organization dedicated to ensuring the quality of more than 3,500 camp programs in the United States.
“We are obviously delighted that the children can have a somewhat normal summer after the 15 months they have endured,” said ACA Executive Director for New York and New Jersey Susie Lupert. “And we are delighted to see the camps, which as an industry have suffered a lot. And now they are able to get a foothold under them.
The ACA has played an important role in allowing the majority of New York’s day camps to open during the 2020 season, albeit at significantly reduced capacities. Lupert explained that the ACA described COVID testing and appropriate security protocols. Looking ahead to this summer, they continued to refine their guidelines, establishing camp cohorts of no more than 36 campers each who would stay together during weeklong programs.
So far, the operational procedures used by the camps have proven to be largely effective in mitigating large epidemics. In Sullivan County, for example, there have been only four cases of COVID in 187 night camps and day camps, Public Health Director Nancy McGraw said in a written statement, adding that at 19 July, there were 17 active cases across the county. Orange County reports about 15 cases per day, but none have been linked to summer camps. Putnam County reported that a person in an overnight camp tested positive for the coronavirus.
Ulster County Deputy Deputy Director Dan Torres said he had not heard of any major positive in our camps so far. Regarding the recent death of a 13-year-old girl in Brooklyn following her stay at Camp Rav Tov in Wawarsing – a camp that was singled out last year by Ulster County officials for failing to follow the COVID-19 safety guidelines – Torres confirmed that campers and staff all tested negative for COVID-19 earlier in July, and no other campers were showing signs of illness. He again said this morning that there was still no evidence COVID was responsible for the girl’s death and that there were still no significant cases in the camps.
The Times Union: Hudson Valley has requested comment from Camp Pontiac but has not received a response at press time. However, Mabb praised the camp for its swift response in handling the outbreak and alerting the health service. He said camp directors demanded that all campers be tested before they arrive and that all counselors be vaccinated.
“I think they will quickly figure this out and I am happy to see the camps open,” Mabb said.
Waiting for the vaccine for the children
While Mabb has his concerns about the “collective life” associated with an overnight camp, day camps are not immune to exposure. The Dutchess County Behavioral and Community Health Department (DBCH) has opened an investigation in the town of Red Hook after eight confirmed cases of COVID-19, believed to be the result of a party at a private residence, have now an impact on the city’s day camp.
A statement from DBCH said the city’s recreation camp and swimming pool programs – as well as the Red Hook Central School District Summer School program – are working closely with health officials for the contact tracing, quarantines and “other precautionary mitigation efforts”.
“It is a vital reminder to our community that the COVID-19 pandemic is still here and that it is just as important to be vigilant and to continue to take action to protect yourself and your family,” said the commissioner of the DBCH, Dr Anil Vaidian in Liberation. “Those who are not vaccinated remain a vector of the virus. ”
Meanwhile, Wild Earth Day Camp in Ulster County is trying to build on the success of the past year to deliver a modified summer to as many campers as possible. Communications and Connections Director Omari Washington said they were uniquely equipped to deal with COVID-19 since the entire camp has always been completely outdoors and at 175 acres there is plenty of room for social distancing on campgrounds.
Since the camp began on June 28, it has not recorded any cases of COVID-19, according to Washington.
“It’s such a big challenge to face something so new, and it took really a lot of thinking to figure out how to make the camp safe,” Washington said.
One decision that has remained in place since the start of the pandemic was to temporarily end programs for campers in the four to seven age group. Washington explained that Wild Earth management deemed them too young to follow protocols and mask if necessary, so they decided to welcome campers between the ages of eight and 17.
Even with success stories from other Hudson Valley camps, Mabb said he expects more incidents like the Camp Pontiac outbreak to occur in August due to the delta variant. He explained that the Columbia County Department of Health does not test the variant, but rather assumes its prevalence in the community. His message to parents of young children: Vaccinate your children.
“I feel, as [health department] director, a sense of urgency, that we should vaccinate as many people as possible in the face of this variant, including children between the ages of five and 11, ”Mabb said, once the vaccine is available to them. “I hope the chatter we hear is that at the end of August, maybe September, these children could be vaccinated. And I hope the parents will jump on it.
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Christopher Cicchiello is a writing intern currently pursuing a journalism degree from Syracuse University. For story ideas and inquiries you can reach him at [email protected]
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