Nationwide between Aug. 5 and Aug 12, about 121,000 children tested positive for the virus, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. That’s a 23% increase over the prior week.

“Time and time again we’re seeing kids return to school and then come home — either after an exposure or sick themselves,” says Dr. Nicole Braxley, an emergency medicine physician at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Sacramento. “The virus sheds for a couple of days before the patient has symptoms. Entire families are suddenly exposed.”…

Rico worried he might contract the virus, too. Each morning he anxiously took a rapid test. He hoped the vaccination he got would offer complete protection, but he caught a “vaccine breakthrough case.” On the fourth morning Rico Garcia tested positive for the coronavirus. Within 24 hours, symptoms set in.

“It felt like a terrible head cold,” Rico says. “My brain was foggy. I couldn’t think straight.”

Then he lost his voice. He called in sick to the radio station where he’s a DJ.

“My first sip of coffee was amazing,” Rico Garcia remembers. “My ninth and tenth sip tasted like hot water. In the snap of a finger my sense of taste and smell was gone. I went as far as to cut a lime open and bite into it — and tasted nothing.”