Seeing too many residents going to school extracurricular and social life events such as weddings without taking precautions, the chief Woodbury County public health official has chastised residents for becoming lax in the fight to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The prime culprits are adults from age 18 to 40, Siouxland District Health Department Director Kevin Grieme said. He said 61 percent of county positive cases are from people in that young adult to nearly middle age range, so they are prime contributors to the "dramatic" rise in virus numbers.
"It is that age range that are really out and about, that is socializing, with the highest impact," Grieme said, when speaking Monday in a Sioux City School Board meeting, at the beginning of a week in which the number of positive virus cases rose above 7,400.
Some people worried that the resumption of school in August would raise the number of cases, even as officials undertook huge cleaning activities and some districts required masks. But only 10 percent of coronavirus cases in Woodbury County come from the school age range up through age 17, Grieme said.
In an Oct. 10 weekly COVID-19 status report, the Siouxland District Health Department wrote sternly that people who have been exposed to the virus, and those who have tested positive, should not be going out and about.
"IT IS STILL EXPECTED THAT AN INDIVIDUAL THAT HAS BEEN TESTED IS TO QUARANTINE UNTIL THEY RECEIVE THE RESULTS OF THEIR TESTS," Siouxland District Health wrote in all-caps.
"Until we have compliance with isolation and quarantine expectations, we will continue to see new cases on a daily basis," the report added.
