Oak Ridge Pediatrics has COVID-19 vaccines available for patients who are 12 years old and older.
You can call the office at (865) 482-4088 to reserve a time.
The vaccines are available for any eligible children needing the COVID-19 vaccination, according to East Tennessee Children’s Hospital.
[Read more…]A small group of parents and two school board members on Monday said they support following federal guidance and requiring face masks in Oak Ridge Schools to help keep students, staff, and their families from getting infected with COVID-19 and spreading it. They cited the rising case numbers in Anderson County and Tennessee as the delta variant of the new coronavirus causes new case numbers to surge across the country, driving up hospitalizations and making more younger people sick.
The school system did not make a decision Monday, but school officials said they are watching the COVID-19 case numbers and could make a decision later. The school system required face masks last year but relaxed that requirement when cases declined over many months following the winter peak. Now, cases are trending back up, and it’s not clear how long that could continue.
School officials say they have also heard from parents who object to requiring masks again.
What do you think? Should Oak Ridge Schools require face masks in schools to help prevent the spread of COVID-19?
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Vaccinations remain the best tool to fight COVID-19 as cases surge across the state, Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey said Monday. More than 90 percent of COVID-19 cases and deaths in Tennessee are among the unvaccinated, and 90 percent of hospitalizations are, Piercey told reporters.
“The vaccine is the single best tool we have to fight COVID-19,” Piercey said.
Driven by the delta variant, cases in Tennessee have surged from a few hundred per day about a month ago to an average of almost 1,900 per day. Following the increase in cases, hospitalizations have risen from a few hundred at one time to more than 1,000 now. They haven’t been that high since February, after the winter peak in December and January, Piercey said.
“That is clearly the wrong direction,” she said.
She said the vast majority of those who are in the hospital, 90 percent, are unvaccinated. The unvaccinated make up even higher percentages of new COVID-19 cases and deaths in Tennessee: more than 93 percent of new cases and 95 percent of deaths.
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There were 33 days in June and July when Anderson County reported either no new cases of COVID-19 or one. But that changed around July 12. The average number of new cases reported in Anderson County each day has steadily climbed, and the county is now reporting between 12 and 32 new cases per day.
That is still significantly below the winter peak in December and January, when the new daily case average was more than 100, with peaks over 200 new cases per day.
However, it’s not clear when the current increase in cases might slow down or end. Medical workers and health and government officials are warning about the spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, especially among the unvaccinated, and they are urging people to get vaccinated. Cases have surged in parts of the United States, including Tennessee and several other states in the Southeast.
On Sunday, the seven-day average of new cases in Anderson County was 18.4, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. That was up from 13.1 on Wednesday, four days earlier. The low point was a seven-day average of 0.4 new cases per day reported July 6.
The longer trend of new cases, a two-week average, was 13.6 on Sunday. That was more than four times as high as the previous two-week average of 3.0.
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A small group of parents and two school board members asked for face masks to be required in Oak Ridge Schools, but no decision was made during a school board meeting Monday evening.
Some students are too young to get vaccinated, the parents and school board members said. Others have only had one COVID-19 vaccination shot and aren’t fully vaccinated. Four days into the new school year, parent Gretchen Toney said her daughter has already been exposed to COVID-19 at Robertsville Middle School and sent home to quarantine, potentially exposing her four-year-old son at home and continuing to prevent a visit by her father, who has cancer.
Parent Laetitia Delmau said her children at RMS and Oak Ridge High School are getting non-stop comments because they wear masks for their own protection, and the schools should be free of harassment and bullying.
Citing reports from their children and their own personal observations, parents said few people are wearing masks in Oak Ridge Schools.
The parents asked the school system to follow the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which recommended on Tuesday that everyone should wear a mask indoors in K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status. The American Academy of Pediatrics has also recommended universal masking in schools this fall, and on Monday, the University of Tennessee announced it will require masks in many indoor settings this fall semester.
“I really request that we follow the CDC guidelines,” Toney said.
[Read more…]The University of Tennessee will require face masks indoors this fall semester.
Masks will be required in classrooms, laboratories, other places of instruction, and any indoor events that students are required to attend, UT said in a press release Monday.
The university may be the first school in the area to announce a mask requirement as the delta variant of the new coronavirus spreads in Tennessee and across the United States. Masks are not currently required in Oak Ridge Schools.
In the press release, UT System President Randy Boyd urged students, faculty, and staff members to talk with their families and healthcare providers about the benefits of receiving a COVID-19 vaccination.
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After more than seven months, about 43 percent of people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in Anderson County–lower than the national average–and the number of daily vaccinations remains far below the peak this spring, according to state data.
The largest increase in vaccinations in Anderson County was between about late February and mid-May. There were eight days with about 900 vaccinations or more during that time period and three days in April with more than 1,000 vaccinations, according to data from the Tennessee Department of Health. The peak was 1,256 vaccinations on April 10.
Now, though, vaccinations are in the range of about 100 per day, with all peaks below 200. At that rate, it could take months, maybe more than a year, to approach a vaccination rate of 70 percent or higher.
The number of new vaccine recipients can vary widely each day, but there does appear to be an increase in the number of new recipients as the new daily case rate rises again in Anderson County.
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Anderson County has reported 89 new COVID-19 cases in a week as the infection rate increases and officials across the country warn of the spread of the delta variant, especially among the unvaccinated. The increase in Anderson County mirrors what is happening across Tennessee, where new cases have surged from a few hundred each day to more than 2,500 each day while hospitalizations have more than quadrupled.
The positivity rate, a measure of the positive tests each day, has been 10 percent or higher in Anderson County four times since July 12. It hit a high of 24 percent on July 20, according to data from the Tennessee Department of Health. Ten percent is high, and World Health Organization guidelines have called for keeping the positivity rate below 5 percent.
The county’s 89 new cases in a week, from July 22 to July 28, is an average of 12.7 new cases per day. That average is 32 times higher than the low seven-day average of 0.4 new cases per day reported about three weeks ago, on July 6.
The seven-day new case average is now the highest it’s been about since about March 23. That’s when COVID-19 cases were in the middle of a slow months-long decline after a winter peak in November, December, and January.
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Note: This story was updated at 12:15 p.m. July 28.
The COVID-19 case and positivity rates are rising in Anderson County as school resumes in Oak Ridge. More than 100 new COVID-19 cases, four hospitalizations, and three deaths have been reported since mid-July. The positivity rate, a measure of how many COVID-19 tests are positive each day, is about 10 percent, which exceeds World Health Organization guidelines.
Cases in Tennessee have surged from a low of a few hundred new cases per day about a month ago to roughly 2,100 new cases on Tuesday. Current hospitalizations across the state have climbed from a low of a few hundred to 762. Fifty-one hospitalizations were reported Tuesday.
In the past two weeks, the rate of new COVID-19 cases per day in Anderson County has steadily climbed from a low of about one new case per day in Anderson County to 7.6 new cases per day. The county reported 112 new cases of COVID-19 between Monday, July 12, and Tuesday, July 27, according to data from the Tennessee Department of Health. (See also here and here.)
There were 74 new cases of COVID-19 reported in the week between Tuesday, July 20, and Monday, July 26. That’s an average of about 10.6 new cases per day. The one-week average of 10.6 new cases per day was higher than the 14-day case average of 7.6 reported by the state.
Two new deaths due to COVID-19 were reported in Anderson County on Monday, although that doesn’t necessarily mean the deaths occurred Monday because the state reporting can lag a few days behind when the deaths occurred.
Also in the last two weeks, the positivity rate has climbed from about 2.3 percent on Monday, July 12, to 9.3 percent on Tuesday, July 27. The WHO has recommended a positivity rate below 5 percent.
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The COVID-19 case rate in Anderson County remains low, but it is rising quickly–and the positivity rate has spiked over 20 percent, according to information published by the Tennessee Department of Health. There has been another death due to COVID-19 in Anderson County.
In late June and early July, the number of new cases of COVID-19 per day in the county had dropped to an average of roughly one new case per day. That was the lowest level observed in a year or more, since the first peak in July 2020.
In the past week or so, though, the new case average has climbed past two, then three, and now four new cases per day.
During the past 14 days, Anderson County has averaged 4.4 new cases per day, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. That was up from 0.8 new cases per day in the previous two weeks.
The positivity rate, which measures how many patients test positive out of those tested each day, has climbed even quicker. It had been in a low range of around 2 percent to 3 percent, lower than the World Health Organization guideline of 5 percent. But Tennessee Department of Health data shows the positivity rate has spiked past 20 percent, which is high, and the seven-day average has climbed quickly to 10.2 percent in about a week or so. The number of tests per day remains fairly low, however, and it’s not clear what part the low test rate might play in the high positivity rate. When the case count was higher, Anderson County was testing several hundred people per day.
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The number of new cases of COVID-19 remains low in Anderson County, but the rate of new cases per day is rising again. Also, the positivity rate has climbed back over 5 percent, and there have been four new hospitalizations due to COVID-19 in the past week.
About a week ago, the number of new cases per day was at about one. That was the lowest it had been since cases first started rising more than a year ago, before the first COVID-19 case peak in July 2020. The case average has been low for weeks after a slow decline starting in January.
In the past week, however, the new daily case rate has slowly climbed again. In the past two weeks, Anderson County has averaged three new cases of COVID-19 per day, according to the Tennessee Department of Health. That is up from an average of 1.1 in the prior 14 days.
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The COVID-19 case rate remains low in Anderson County. The county continues to report about one new case of COVID-19 per day.
The positivity rate, the percentage of patients who test positive for COVID-19 out of those tested each day, also remains below 5 percent, in line with World Health Organization guidelines.
Anderson County reported 37 new cases of COVID-19 in June, an average of a little more than one new case per day. There were three hospitalizations and three deaths, according to data published by the Tennessee Department of Health.
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