Covid cases (3) closes summer camp at Camp Daniel Boone (NC)

[RememberSchiff]

Camp Daniel Boone was closed mid-week when three out-of-state campers tested positive during their stay. The camp is now closed.

Daniel Boone Council statement:

The health and safety of our Scouting families, volunteers, employees, and the broader community is our highest priority. 

We notified local health officials immediately upon learning that a small number of people tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, July 14. We also informed all individuals who attended camp during that time of their potential exposure.

We have worked closely with our local health officials on implementing expert-informed COVID-19 protocols since the beginning of the pandemic. This includes our COVID-19 Mitigation Plan, which was approved by the Haywood County Health Department.

Our multilayered mitigation measures at camp — including a pre-event medical screening checklist, daily temperature checks during camp, social distancing, a mask requirement for indoor and group settings, handwashing and sanitizing stations throughout camp, and many more — helped limit exposure.

However, we determined that these few positive cases and the associated close contacts, unfortunately, inhibited our ability to safely run the remaining sessions at Camp Daniel Boone. All registrants will receive a full refund, and we look forward to providing them and all other Scouting families with incredible camping opportunities this fall.

We will continue to keep health and safety at the forefront of everything we do. 

This incident did not meet the traditional standard for a cluster of cases, however, it is important to share it with the public to highlight how easily such situations can occur, even when everything possible is done to prevent them, and to highlight the importance of vaccination and preventative measures. 

By communicating early and working together with the health department, the potential severity of the outbreak was lessened, and positive cases were quickly isolated, helping to prevent what could have been a much worse situation. 

All campers and scout leaders who attended Camp Daniel Boone this week, unfortunately, had to end their camp time early and return home for follow-up and care, as needed, in their home states.

Next week’s session, the last in the season, has also been canceled out of an abundance of caution.

In accordance with accepted standards, the camp will be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected before future campers arrive.

Sources:

https://www.themountaineer.com/news/covid-19-is-back/article_e1709ea2-e648-11eb-8963-efd457266e38.html

https://www.haywoodcountync.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=593

[FireStone]

Anyone know what their testing protocol was? They mentioned a pre-event medical screening checklist, seems that COVID testing wasn't a part of it. Probably could have avoided this if they did have a pre-camp testing requirement.

I know some parents aren't happy about putting kids through the testing. But it's a reality we're stuck with right now. Either we test everyone right before camp or we end up testing everyone anyway when a suspected outbreak occurs.

[qwazse]

7 minutes ago, FireStone said:

… But it's a reality we're stuck with right now. Either we test everyone right before camp or we end up testing everyone anyway when a suspected outbreak occurs.

Pre-camp testing seems impossible to enforce. To be practical, campers and staff would have to test the week before remain socially isolated, and retest.
Since seemingly few camps experience outbreaks (this doesn’t seem like an outbreak), testing one camp of residents as confirmed cases arise is the most effective use of resources. It means that a handful of camps will close, but most will go forward with campers reinforcing social distance practices in advance of the school year.

Close attention to local public health reports is critical at this time.

[Jameson76]

Not to downplay the outbreak, but if they had 750 - 1,000 Scouts (Youth / Leaders / Staff) in camp the % of the outbreak is 0.3% to 0.4%.  If the goal is 0% risk of Covid then no activity will ever take place.

Possibly a more directed action could have taken place.  Just suggesting that maybe apply the scalpel rather than the sledgehammer when situations like this inevitably arise.

[FireStone]

12 hours ago, qwazse said:

Pre-camp testing seems impossible to enforce. To be practical, campers and staff would have to test the week before remain socially isolated, and retest...

It can be done. The cub camp I went to with my son required testing within 72 hours of arrival for all unvaccinated attendees. Most scouts in our Pack went to a testing clinic the day before, we can get both rapid and PCR tests done around here in under 18 hours. If they tested on Friday and arrived at camp on Saturday, the likelihood of exposure in that small window of time is very low.

It's not perfect, for sure, but it helps. And I have to imagine that in some of these cases where COVID made its way into camps, pre-camp testing might have prevented it.

[Sniktaw]

So were they conducting mid-week covid tests? I'm confused about the timing.

Glad mine were able to attend camp (two separate ones) with no testing, no masks, and no problems. . . Not to say that there wasn't any covid, but in a population that largely has no symptoms,  you probably wouldn't know it unless you're looking for it.

 

[yknot]

 

5 hours ago, Jameson76 said:

Not to downplay the outbreak, but if they had 750 - 1,000 Scouts (Youth / Leaders / Staff) in camp the % of the outbreak is 0.3% to 0.4%.  If the goal is 0% risk of Covid then no activity will ever take place.

Possibly a more directed action could have taken place.  Just suggesting that maybe apply the scalpel rather than the sledgehammer when situations like this inevitably arise.

Liability issues kind of prevent a scalpel approach. Also, you can have false negative Covid tests but it's rare to get a false positive, so you have to assume there are more than three cases. Additionally, Covid, and especially the newer variants that are vexing everyone, have exponential transmission rates. Three cases today can be 9 or 27 cases tomorrow.  And that 0.3% you cite is simply a snapshot in time. Who knows how many campers tested positive once campers went home. 

[FireStone]

1 hour ago, Sniktaw said:

So were they conducting mid-week covid tests? I'm confused about the timing.

That confused me as well. Seems kind of odd to test mid-week if you're not testing before camp, too. Only doing mid-week testing means you aren't paying much attention to how scouts and leaders are coming in to camp, if any are actually sick. Those pre-event checklists aren't exactly fail-safe, testing is more reliable than self-diagnosis checklist forms. Especially when kids are more often asymptomatic.

I'm generally not a big cheerleader for my local council, but on this issue I'm glad they implemented a pre-camp testing requirement for all council summer camps. We knew going to camp that there was a pretty slim chance anyone would bring COVID with them if everyone was either tested within days of camp or vaccinated.

I saw the camp director have to turn a scout away at the health screening check-in for not having a pre-camp COVID test. It's unfortunate to see that happen, but I think it's a good rule and I am thankful that the camp enforced it. Hopefully that scout was able to find a local rapid-testing clinic near camp and come back in a few hours.

[BAJ]

One caution to add to this discussion — at this point, we don’t know how many total cases there were at either of the camps where COVID was reported (this and the other thread), nor do we know all the BSA affiliated camps where COVID cases have been detected.  Our troop was at a camp last week and we received notification that there were scouts who tested positive immediately after they returned home and so had been potential sources of spread while they were at camp.  I don’t have a link or citation to give you since it looks like there hasn’t been any public report of the events.  

Beyond potentially knowing whether anyone in our unit tests positive this week or next, I don’t know if we will ever know whether there was transmission that occurred at camp or what the real total numbers were.  As the state involved had relaxed its pandemic safety requirements, there had been substantial relaxation of the requirements for things like masking and gathering by attendees before we arrived for our week at camp. Since there were first year scouts there, there was a population of attendees who couldn’t be vaccinated even if they and their families would have wanted them to be (and who knows what fraction of the vaccine-eligible population there had actually had the shot. The camp did not even ask about vaccine status, so they don’t know either). And this during the period when the Delta variant is becoming dominant because of its transmissibility. 

In the discussions of youth protection and CSA on this board, one thread in the discussions here has been transparency — the need for statistics to know the extent of problems and whether efforts to protect scouts are improving or not.  I would argue there is a transparency need here as well.  Are the percentages really as low as @Jameson76calculates above?  They could be, since outdoor activities are lower risk than indoors and much of summer camp even in normal years happens outdoors.  It may not matter if a scout is sitting across a picnic table from an infected scout at a merit badge class if a stiff breeze is blowing through.  But the percentages may not be that low, and while I haven’t attempted to update the census of the safety measures camps are using to limit COVID risk that I did last year, it is clear that there are major differences in approach with some doing things like pre-camp testing discussed above and others going back to “near normal” to even include dining hall operations that could significantly increase risk. Just like one can’t assess what parts of YPT are effective without data, it’s difficult to say which of the decisions to relax or maintain tighter COVID protocols were good or bad without less anecdotal information on outcomes.

[qwazse]

On 7/22/2021 at 8:20 AM, BAJ said:

One caution to add to this discussion — at this point, we don’t know how many total cases there were at either of the camps where COVID was reported (this and the other thread), nor do we know all the BSA affiliated camps where COVID cases have been detected.  … Since there were first year scouts there, there was a population of attendees who couldn’t be vaccinated even if they and their families would have wanted them to be (and who knows what fraction of the vaccine-eligible population there had actually had the shot. The camp did not even ask about vaccine status, so they don’t know either). And this during the period when the Delta variant is becoming dominant because of its transmissibility. 

In the discussions of youth protection and CSA on this board, one thread in the discussions here has been transparency — the need for statistics to know the extent of problems and whether efforts to protect scouts are improving or not.  I would argue there is a transparency need here as well.  Are the percentages really as low as @Jameson76calculates above?  …

Yes, it would be nice to have empirical data — not for individual decisions, but to determine how to help schools make better policy going forward. Unfortunately camps aren’t required to — nor would they be capable of — fielding a public health officer who could report either COVID or salmonella outbreaks. (The latter could be truly harmful in this population.) That would be a mission of your state’s public health office. Volunteer to pay more taxes and it might happen.

Data costs real money, and statisticians don’t come cheap.

But, based on the few studies that I’ve read from last year’s camp season, a positive COVID test or two for every thousand campers would be reasonable expectation. Assuming a majority of adults and older campers/staff would be vaccinated … symptoms, hospitalizations, and deaths, among camp participants would be increasingly rare. How that translates into some unvaccinated adult back home getting sick is the largest unknown, but that’s the most likely downstream effect of youth infections.

[skeptic]

I came back last Saturday from our camp.  All staff had to be vaccinated.  All adult leaders had to be vaccinated.  Eligible youth were asked to be vaccinated.  We had to have proof of the vaccination as part of the paperwork.  

Precamp troop checks were done with a BSA designed check list.  On the day we left, we again went through the checklist and had temps taken.  On arrival, we were interviewed and had temps taken.  At every meal we had to sanitize in front of a staff person and have temp taken.  All group activity required masks, and they enforced it firmly, but nicely, even with this grouchy old man who kept forgetting to put the mask up after water drinking and so on.   Areas were regularly wiped down, and dining was outside in tents or open air with little dining hall access except staff and leaders on occasion.  Drinks were on a porch, and pitchers had to be filled for meals by staff and given to servers.  California state protocols were all were followed strictly, and we had no COVID issues, though a couple of other problems standard to camp attendance.  Still, not sure that common sense and simple normal cleanliness and awareness would not suffice for much of it.  But of course, Common Sense is dead.