ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) — We’re seeing it across the country: the average age of people infected with coronavirus is dropping following a reopening of businesses.
“This is not unique to Rochester,” Olmsted County Public Health Director Graham Briggs said in a briefing Thursday afternoon.
The Med City is seeing this surge and trend toward younger patients, with a recent outbreak of 58 confirmed cases stemming from downtown Rochester.
“This is something whether you are in Miami, Seattle, Houston or downtown Rochester. These sorts of behaviors we are seeing across the country represent a risk for on going transmission, particularly for young groups of people,” Briggs said.
“We really saw a risk and linkage in these cases because of the behavior choices that were made around social distancing and indoors and mask use or lack of it in the community,” he added.
From Friday to Monday, Olmsted County reported 79 new COVID-19 cases. From those 79, eight people were linked to behavior choices, such as an inconsistent use of social distancing, mask wearing and visiting downtown establishments. Before that, from June 15 to July 9, 50 cases were traced back to the downtown are, also linked to behavior choices. From there, 12 more people were infected, adding up to 70 cases and exposure to 227 additional people.
“What this gives us now, it gives us a chance to inform those 227 people of the risk, provide education to them and ultimately stop the transmission here,” Briggs said.
Officials urge residents to use the outbreak as a reminder that the virus isn’t gone yet, and to combat it with the tools we know work.
“That’s why its important, its important for us to be a community and work on this, work together on this,” Briggs said.
The average age or the first set of 58 cases was 28.5. These are just preliminary numbers, OCH says contact tracers are still gathering information and investigating to get a full picture of the downtown outbreak.