how many kids are actually doing that the percentages vary widely depending on age more feds free covid19 test program to halt this week due to lack of funding doctors told abc news its not surprising more cases of the virus are cropping up compared to last school year for a couple of reasons one reason is because the ba5 variant an offshoot of the original omicron variant is continuing to spread making up 90 of cases in the midwest according to the centers for disease control and prevention covid19 cases during the first week of the year for chicago public schools cps obviously covid is still circulating in the community and the variant of covid that is circulating ba5 is extremely transmissible so that one person thats infected can infect a lot more individuals dr tina tan a professor of pediatrics at feinberg school of medicine of northwestern university and a pediatric infectious diseases physician at ann robert lurie childrens hospital of chicago told abc news however there are normal healthy children that will develop more severe disease with ba5 and may be hospitalized from it the ctu did not immediately reply to abc news request for comment there is nothing stopping the district and we have advocated for this to immediately reimpose a mask mandate if they are seeing spread ctu vice president jackson potter told local affiliate abc 7 chicago additionally 315 adults including people such as faculty and administrators have contracted covid19 cps data shows additionally masks continue to be optional for students and staff in school buildings and on school buses after cps dropped its mask mandate in march covid19 cases during the first week of the 202223 school year in chicago public schools are much higher compared to the same time last year according to cps data 449 students have tested positive for the virus during the first week of the new school year 33 times higher than the 135 students who tested positive during the first week of the 202122 school year i dont know more fall covid19 boosters could roll out soon pending green light from fda cdc tan said some of these mitigation measures may need to be reinstated if covid19 cases continue to rise following the news cps announced there would no longer be a requirement for students exposed to the virus to quarantine unless they test positive but i think that if the numbers continue to rise the way theyre rising one of the probably best things to consider is to put back into place a mask mandate more moderna to sue biontechpfizer over covid vaccine people just need to remember that covid is still circulating in the community tan said more than 63 of students aged 12 to 17 are fully vaccinated compared to a little more than 14 of children ages 4 and under if someones exposed and theyre not symptomatic they can still go to school but they should be wearing