NEW HAVEN COUNTY, Conn. (WTNH) — The Chesprocott Health District is diving deep into COVID-19 numbers in Cheshire, Prospect and Wolcott after an increase in cases.

Teens are ten times more likely to have it than anyone else, according to health officials. They did a deep dive into their COVID positivity numbers. For every one adult testing positive, they had ten kids, what they call “older youth” with the coronavirus.

“Town officials were very concerned,” explained Maura Esposito, MPH, RS, Director of Health. “What is going on? Why is this happening?”

We knew the numbers were bound to go up once school started, but this is more than expected. The local health director says teens are simply not following the rules.

Officials with the Chesprocott Health District took a hard look at their cases. Through track and trace, they discovered that older youths are testing positive because they are not taking social distancing seriously.

“They went to various sporting events; they went to a lot of family gatherings, a lot of gatherings with friends,” Esposito said.

She said the more alarming statistic was that half of the students that tested positive did not know that they had COVID because they never had any symptoms.

“Kids were getting tested because they were with people that were positive, so their little friends are telling them, ‘Hey, dude, you know we were out the other night together and we weren’t social distancing.’”

Doctors at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center said mask-wearing works, and it works well and should be worn both indoors and outdoors.

“Masks are critically important to protecting ourselves and protecting each other,” said Dr. Anand Sekaran, Division Head, Hospital Medicine Medical Director, Inpatient Services.

Another reason the younger age group is testing positive? Many times when they do wear a mask, they don’t wear it correctly.

“You will see a lot of people will have the masks low below their nose, it is so important to wear the mask properly for it to be effective,” Sekaran said. “So, it needs to cover the nose and mouth and under the chin.”

Officials said they released the findings because they want to make sure parents are aware of this too, saying that if a student comes down with it, the whole family is quarantined.