As a contact tracer for Uncas Health District, Sue Dubb has lately been seeing cases tied to the kind of large family gatherings people had put off earlier in the coronavirus pandemic, "whether it was a birthday celebration, baby showers, wedding showers."

The public health nurse is seeing the impact of the higher transmissibility of the delta variant, saying it's no longer just one or two people in a household getting infected but sometimes four or five. This variant accounts for more than 80% of new COVID-19 cases nationwide, but individual health districts don't have data on the delta variant in their jurisdictions.

"I think it's those events where people are less conscious of wearing masks and doing the social distancing piece," said Patrick McCormack, director of health for Uncas.

Uncas Health District's jurisdiction includes Bozrah, Franklin, Griswold, Lebanon, Lisbon, Montville, Norwich, Preston, Salem, Sprague and Voluntown.

In terms of vaccination status, Dubb said she's seeing a little bit of everything: cases where the parents are vaccinated but the kids are too young, where one parent is vaccinated and the other isn't, where both parents are unvaccinated but older children in the home signed their own consent forms and got vaccinated.

Unvaccinated still at greater risk

According to the state Department of Public Health, cases rose from 5.41 to 17.34 per 100,000 people among the fully vaccinated from June to July, and from 101.41 to 397.51 among unvaccinated people. But hospitalization rates per 100,000 in Middlesex and New Haven counties fell among the fully vaccinated, from 1.05 to 0.67, while they rose from 2.71 to 5.77 among the unvaccinated.

DPH said a 50-attendee birthday party in June resulted in 16 COVID-19 cases the following week, and unvaccinated attendees were four times as likely to test positive.

Dubb said the state has asked health districts, when doing contact tracing, to focus more on whether people are vaccinated, whether they got both doses and what kind of vaccine they got.

Dubb said Uncas hasn't been seeing a lot of cases in day care facilities and, for the most part, reports of younger children testing positive are kids home with their parents for the summer.

But Mary Day, public health nurse at Ledge Light Health District, said she's seeing outbreaks associated with day cares. "We've sort of seen waves of outbreaks, so there was a wave of day care outbreaks probably late winter or early spring of 2021, and now we're seeing a second wave of that." She is not aware of children in Ledge Light's jurisdiction that have been hospitalized.

Ledge Light covers East Lyme, Groton, Ledyard, Lyme, New London, North Stonington, Old Lyme, Stonington and Waterford.

Day said a lot of day cares are reporting cold-like symptoms among kids, and she is seeing infections among unvaccinated and fully vaccinated staff members. Like Dubb, Day also said she's seeing cases associated with social gatherings, such as family reunions or birthday parties.

What happens now after contact tracing?

Dubb said anyone who tests positive, regardless of vaccination status, needs to isolate for 10 days and can come out of isolation when they have gone 24 hours without a fever.

When it comes to exposure to somebody who tests positive for the coronavirus, vaccinated people don't need to quarantine but are supposed to wear a mask for 14 days, she said.

Unvaccinated people have three options: Dubb said the best practice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is to quarantine for 14 days, but the most popular choice is quarantining for 10 days and self-monitoring for the next four. The third option is getting a test between days five and seven, and with a negative result, self-monitoring for the rest of the two weeks.

"I like to think that people are doing what is asked of them," McCormack said. "I think we've come a long way in terms of compliance."

e.moser@theday.com