Members of the Chautauqua County Board of Health met Thursday in Zoom conference.

Chautauqua County has gone up from 0.4% positive cases in late June to 1.5% positive COVID-19 cases in early July. County health officials are blaming the increase on young people.

“We have some younger folks who have been cooped up for a long time. They’re now getting out and about and they’re not abiding by our social distancing recommendations or the masking requirements and that is beginning to show in our numbers, especially post-holidays,” said Public Health Director Christine Schuyler during the county Board of Health meeting Thursday.

As she has shared before, Schuyler is concerned that young people who get the virus may unintentionally infect senior citizens or vulnerable adults for whom the virus can be fatal. “It would be a real tragedy to have our young people who aren’t realizing the impact they can have on the lives of their parents, grandparents, if they were to pass COVID-19 on to someone who is just not able to fight it off as they are.”

Unlike the higher fever, common symptoms for young people who test positive include lack of smell and lack of taste.

Schuyler said graduation parties and other gatherings have recently been hot spots for COVID-19.

Robert Berke, county physician, said that younger people are out and about, not paying attention, which is driving up infections among the vulnerable. “This is a serious problem,” he said. “We’ve got a bunch of kids back that think this is party time.”

Besides newspapers and radio, Schuyler said she has been trying to get the word out to be safe by making short videos for Facebook. Board members talked about using other ways to reach out to young people, including Twitter and Instagram.

Currently, New York has banned travel from certain states, including nearby Ohio. Schuyler said her office is being inundated with calls from businesses, residents and travelers seeking guidance as well as reporting possible violators. “Quite often if these complaints are incomplete or if we have inadequate information, we cannot and we will not follow up on these complaints,” she said.

Violators who do not self-report can be subpoenaed and fined. “Bottom line this is the governor’s executive order,” Schuyler said. “Our only advice we can give to people is that if you are traveling into New York from any of these states, you must self-quarantine for 14 days.”