I do not want to be writing about COVID anymore than people want to read about it. The fact is the situation continues to evolve and continues to be important. The fact of the matter is that in some places schools are a front line of fights over COVID, which is just a sad, sad state of affairs. For North Dakota I looked at the two younger age groups, ages 0-9, and then add ages 10-19, taking both as a share of total cases.

I include data for September to date and we can see that is not helping matters much. Age 0-9 are making up increasing shares of the total cases out there, now above 10%. The fact is the percentage for this young age group, without vaccine available, was higher this year than for most of 2020. This is to be expected at some level, if those with access to vaccines are taking it, and are less likely to contract the disease, or at least less likely to contract with symptoms making them get a test, this should naturally rise. If we add the next older age group we see a similar story.

Once again with the September data for 2021 so far we see a significant increase again. Once again this outcome will, to some extent be expected, when you see large percentages of older ages getting vaccinated. However, it is important to keep this situation in mind when thinking about school events and policies.