ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Masks will remain optional in the St. Clairsville-Richland City School District as COVID-19 cases decline in the schools.

Superintendent Walter Skaggs confirmed Wednesday morning during the board of education’s meeting that the district’s mask policy will remain optional for students and faculty. He said the number of cases has declined over the last couple of days.

School nurse Kerry Shepherd said there are currently 13 positive cases among students and staff — 11 cases among students and two cases among staff. The cases break down to four positives in the elementary school, four in the middle school and five in the high school. There are also 17 close contacts reported among students and zero among staff.

“The (Belmont County) health department feels that three weeks ago should have been the peak for the delta (variant), so we should see a downward trend now,” she said.

Shepherd said she is anticipating a slight uptick following this weekend’s homecoming dance; however, the district’s numbers are still “very good.”

“There’s still no transmission in the classrooms other than the one special needs classroom. Anybody that has been isolated or quarantined because of a close contact in the classroom has not had any issues. It’s community-wide, it’s mostly in families,” she said.

Skaggs said he recently attended a statewide superintendents meeting in which other superintendents reported a decline in their schools’ case numbers as well. He said he hopes the downward trend continues.

In other matters, Belmont County Juvenile and Probate Judge Al Davies gave an update about some of the programs offered to students in the county. A couple of the programs he spoke about are the alternative school, which offers education to students suspended from school, and the virtual learning program, which offers an alternative to students who have a difficult time learning in a traditional classroom setting.

Davies said the leading cause of students being sent to the alternative school program, both this year and last year, is due to students using vaping devices.

“I’m trying to get as much information as I can out there about the destruction of nicotine addiction. It’s amazing to me the amount of misinformation about vaping,” he said, adding that he tries to educate youth that heroin and nicotine are the two most addictive drugs.

He said he is working to create a program for the schools to educate students more on the negative effects of vaping. Skaggs said people do not realize how bad vaping is for them and the long-term effects it can have on the person’s lungs.

Davies also talked about the Belmont County Schools Staying Clean program. He said the district is able to use some of the funds obtained through the program to sponsor other programs for students in the county. One of those programs occurred Wednesday at the Capitol Music Hall in Wheeling. Students in the county were transported to the location to hear from speaker Nathan Harman.

“He’s a very dynamic speaker with a very impactful story. He was a drug addict, alcoholic, and was involved in a car accident. He was driving and killed one of his best friends. He went to prison, he was reformed, rehabilitated, reborn and now he has an amazing story that he can relate very well to the kids,” he said.

Another program is the Juvenile Justice Jeopardy Rollout that is put on by the St. Clairsville Police Department. It is a Jeopardy-style program in the classroom with a range of topics about police interactions, rights, and consequences of getting into trouble. Davies said he hopes to extend the program into other schools in the county.

Davies said they are resuming mock trials this year. He said the seventh-and eighth-grade program will resume in December.

“If we can make an impact on just one kid, I think it’s been a victory,” he said.

Davies thanked the board for its partnership on the programs.

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BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Summer is coming to an end and with it, hopes of getting covid under control.

While covid cases continue to climb, many Labor Day travelers are returning home from their final trip of the summer.

READ MORE: Police Continue To Seek Information In Connection To Shooting On Towson University Campus

Despite warnings from the CDC urging unvaccinated people not to travel ahead of the holiday weekend, more people were on the move across the country compared to last year.

“People are like yeah it’s all open it all free, and it’s devastating to me,” said one nurse.

Here in Maryland over 1,000 new COVID-19 cases and 14 deaths were reported Monday. The statewide positivity rate remains just below 5 percent.

Governor Larry Hogan touted the state’s vaccination efforts on meet the press Sunday.

“I’m pleased with the results of where we are,” said Hogan. “We’ve vaccinated 81 percent of all the people that are eligible.”

READ MORE: Actor Michael K. Williams, Omar On ‘The Wire,’ Dead At 54

After the praise, Hogan highlighted the continued push to get more shots in arms.

“We’re still dealing with the unvaccinated folks, which count for most of our hospitalizations and deaths,” said Hogan. “And some of it has to do with the fact that there’s been tremendous disinformation campaigns.”

Despite warnings from the CDC, many people decided to stick to their travel plans over the holiday weekend. The TSA estimates roughly 3.5 million travelers passed through airports across the country on Friday and Saturday alone – more than doubling last year’s number.

And doctors say that comes with risk.

“What we are concerned about is that travel could increase the positivity rate in our state,” said Dr. David Marcozzi, Chief Clinical Officer of the University of Maryland Medical System.

MORE NEWS: Husband & Wife Duo, Dan And Claudia Zanes, Turn Pandemic Project Into Full Album

Health officials are now keeping a close eye on key COVID-19 metrics in the coming days as Labor Day travel comes to an end.

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The latest numbers show the national unemployment rate fell slightly to 5.2% in August from 5.4% in July. The new numbers were released Friday, just before supplemental federal unemployment benefits ended.

Those benefits included providing payments to gig workers, extending how long jobless workers received benefits and paid an extra $300 a week.

South Carolina was one of 25 states that ended the $300 benefit early, while North Carolina kept it to the end. And Wells Fargo senior economist Mark Vitner says it’s difficult to tell what impact pulling the extra money early had on a state’s worker shortage. Employment growth during the last few months in states that left early were nearly even with those that continued to provide the benefit, he said.

“But the states that remained in the program were the states that locked down the hardest when the pandemic first hit,” Vitner said. “So employment fell nearly twice as much in those states as it did in the states that left early, so they had more ground to make up.”

Vintner says Georgia and Florida were some of the first states to end the extra benefit early, and they’re now seeing their strongest job growth since the first two months after their lockdowns ended.

The jobless numbers also gave a hint of how the delta variant slowed job growth last month. Sectors that require interacting with the public, such as restaurants, hotels and retailers, had the lowest hiring numbers.

Vitner is now keeping an eye on whether these workers will return. The jobs depend on employees returning to the office, he said, which may be delayed due to the surge in COVID-19 cases.

“I think that there’s some split, by major employers in Charlotte, Raleigh, as to whether they’re going to come back to the office in September or October or push it out to the start of next year,” Vitner said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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The other projected starting guard, Connor Williams, returned to practice on Sunday after being activated off of the Reserve/COVID-19 list. McCarthy says the team will look at various combinations to fill the void of Martin’s absence and that Connor McGovern will be looked to first in practice.

“We will continue to work the combinations, but Connor McGovern will take the majority of the reps at right guard,” McCarthy said. 

The Buccaneers’ defensive line is formidable, so the absence of perhaps the Cowboys’ most consistently dominant player will surely be felt. Martin has been selected to six Pro Bowls in his seven NFL seasons. 

Wide receiver Noah Brown and offensive lineman Brandon Knight (who had close contact with a COVID-19 case) are also currently on the team’s Reserve/COVID-19 list.

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Can you drink alcohol after getting the coronavirus vaccine?

It’s a question some have been asking since the onset of the pandemic.

The answer, according to an Illinois doctor with Cook County Health, is yes, but there’s a catch.

“It’s a great question. The simple, short answer is yes,” Dr. Mark Loafman, chair of family and community medicine for Cook County Health, told NBC Chicago in May. “There’s no prohibition against drinking alcohol. It wasn’t specifically studied and there’s an assumption that some, you know, an average number of people in the study did use alcohol during the study, but it wasn’t specifically measured.”

“Excessive” alcohol consumption, however, can lead to a weakened immune system, Loafman said at the time.

“We know in general that people who have used alcohol, excessive doses of alcohol, have a weakened immune system and that makes them more susceptible to infection and may weaken their response to a vaccine,” he said.

So what is considered excessive? According to Loafman, it’s more than one drink a day for women and more than two drinks a day for men with “consistent use over time.”

“The caveat is that amount or more of alcohol use is known to be harmful for the immune system,” the doctor previously said. “It doesn’t mean the vaccine wouldn’t work, but it may weaken the immune system. So routine drinking that people do and in social situations or what we consider moderate alcohol consumption, there’s no reason to alter that behavior simply because of the vaccine.”

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As the Labor Day weekend begins, state and county officials have pledged to enforce emergency rules related to COVID-19 in an effort to stem the spread of the virus.

During a press conference Friday, Sept. 3, Gov. David Ige was joined by all county mayors and law enforcement leaders who pleaded with Hawaiʻi residents to abide by health care restrictions for the sake of not just the community but the welfare of Hawaiʻi’s overcrowded hospitals.

“Our choices today and over the weekend can help prevent the worst-case scenario for our health care system,” Ige said. “Please act responsibly this holiday weekend. Do it for the sake of your family, your community and the state.”

The spike in COVID-19 cases, Ige said, has put “tremendous stress” on the hospitals and the state is in danger of moving toward what he described as the “worst-case scenario.”

“If that happens, we have heard from our health care leaders that people may not receive the care they need and certainly some may die,” Ige said. “We’re asking everybody to work with us to limit the spread of COVID.”

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Jill Hoggard Green, president & CEO of The Queen’s Health Systems, stated this is an important time for the community.

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“Today is a very serious day,” Green said. “We face a delta variant that is dangerous, rapidly growing, easily transmitted and can cause serious consequences, particularly to those who aren’t vaccinated.”

Green described the health care system’s worst-case scenario as the hospitals having so many patients “that we can’t care for all of you and are unable to provide the high level of care.”

Green said there isn’t a specific number of patients being treated at the hospital that would trigger this.

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“It’s when you no longer have the ability to care for the next group of patients coming in and continue to care for the individuals you have,” she said.

However, Green believes that situation can be avoided by following the safety guidelines officials have preached since the beginning of the pandemic: avoid large gatherings, wear a mask in public, stay home when sick and wash hands regularly.

Green added the best way for someone to protect themselves and to fight the virus is to get vaccinated.

“If we all work together today, we can stop the transmission of the disease,” she said. “If we don’t, we’ll hit a point where we won’t be able to meet a patient’s needs.”

How Hawaiʻi behaves over the long weekend and into the coming weeks will determine if hospitals are headed to maximum capacity, Green added.

“We can do this,” Green said. “This is a time where we can control all that happens to us.”

On Aug. 25, Hawaiʻi County Mayor Mitch Roth enacted Emergency Rule 17, which limits indoor and outdoor gathering sizes to 10 people. Those in violation could face a citation of $250.

During the press conference, Roth said, hospitals on the Big Island are at capacity.

“We have 24 ICU beds and we have 25 people needing ICU services,” the mayor stated. “That’s a big number.”

There are patients in need of care for COVID and non-COVID issues.

“It’s our sincere hope that our community will take it into their own hands to keep each other safe this weekend and every other day,” Roth said. “We need to do whatever we can to not only protect our health care workers but everyone on this island.”

In reference to his latest emergency rule, Roth said the measure isn’t intended to be government control, but for the community to take control of this virus.

“No mandate is going to slow down the spread without full participation from every one of us,” said.

Roth said this weekend isn’t a time to let the guard down but to put it up.

“No one wants to give citations on a holiday weekend, but it’s something we will do,” the mayor said.

Hawaiʻi Police Chief Paul Ferreira was also present during the press conference. He echoed the same pleas of compliance.

“Any protective measures will protect not only you but your neighbors,” he said.

Labor Day weekend is normally a time when HPD increases its enforcement as there is usually a spike in impaired driving. Ferreira said there will be additional officers in the field and a saturation of patrol on the roads.

No one wants to issue citations or arrests but the chief said it’s a tool to ensure the emergency rules are followed.

“The plea is voluntary compliance,” Ferreira said.

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With at least 13,790 COVID-19 patients, most of them unvaccinated, hospitalized in Texas on Thursday, the state marked a week hovering at just below the record set in January for hospitalizations during the pandemic, according to numbers released by the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The state’s previous pandemic peak of 14,218 hospitalized COVID-19 patients was reported Jan. 11 during the deadliest wave of infections the state had seen since the virus was first reported in Texas in March 2020.

During the current summer surge, the largest number of COVID-19 patients in Texas hospitals has been 13,932 on Aug. 25. But with just a couple hundred fewer patients statewide than the record — and a much more exhausted and depleted workforce than they had over the winter — hospitals have been operating at or above capacity for weeks.

The surge has put unprecedented pressure on the state’s health care system as the delta variant spreads largely uncontrolled at a rate up to eight times faster than previous versions of the virus. Medical professionals say the situation could have been prevented with wider acceptance of the vaccine.

In recent weeks, the state has already seen a record number of hospitals reporting that they had run out of staffed ICU beds available for new patients. Particular pressure is being felt by large metropolitan systems that have put elective surgeries on hold and report having to turn away ambulances due to overflowing emergency and intensive care departments.

Much of the problem, hospital officials say, is a severe shortage of nurses and other staff to take care of patients after large numbers of health workers quit or retired due to COVID-related during the pandemic. Health care workers who remain are expensive and in high demand.

During the winter surge, state health and emergency management leaders sent tens of thousands of relief nurses from across the state and nation to relieve the pressure on overwhelmed hospitals.

After vaccinations were made widely available in the spring and hospitalizations dropped, the state-supported nurse program ended in May. But vaccinations began to slow around that time as well, when just about a quarter of Texans had gotten injections.

That opened the door for the delta variant to spread more quickly starting around June; hospitalizations started surging later that month.

Experts say the best way to flatten the curve is to ramp up social distancing, mask-wearing and hand-washing, proven methods for stopping COVID-19’s spread, while the state works to get more of Texas’ 29 million residents vaccinated.

But Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has stood fast against any state or local mandates that proponents say would push Texas toward more vaccinations and slower community spread.

A strong opponent of lockdowns in the wake of widespread Republican criticism of his pandemic-era rules last summer, Abbott dropped statewide business capacity restrictions and mask mandates in March.

Through a series of executive orders and legislation, Abbott and Texas lawmakers also banned Texas businesses from requiring customers to show proof of vaccination, local governments and school districts from requiring masks and public sector employers from requiring their workers to be vaccinated.

Those bans remain in legal limbo as they move through the courts.

Last week, Abbott issued an executive order saying that his bans would remain in place even after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave Pfizer’s vaccine full approval for people ages 16 and up on Monday. Abbott’s previous orders had applied only to vaccines that had only emergency use authorization.

Meanwhile, most Texas school districts have started classes almost entirely in person, many with mask requirements in place in defiance of Abbott’s stance against them, in an effort to stop the quickening spread of the delta variant among Texas children.

Just under 48% of Texans have been fully vaccinated, which experts say protects them from serious illness, hospitalization and death.

Those who aren’t vaccinated constitute upward of 90% of the hospitalized patients, officials report. Cities, counties, universities and private companies are offering incentives for vaccinations, and the state has reported a small upswing in the number of daily shots being given in recent weeks.

But while that number begins to climb from its low point late July, officials are seeking to solve the hospital staffing problem.

So far, the state has paid to hire more than 8,000 contract health care workers for Texas hospitals that are under the most pressure, many of which have already seen admission rates close to or higher than they were seeing in January — when they had more staff to take care of those patients.

The state-funded relief nurses have been arriving at hospitals for the last few weeks. Meanwhile, some counties are considering using or have already agreed to tap federal stimulus money to add more workers to further handle the crush of patients.

More Texas doctors are also turning to monoclonal antibody therapies for COVID-19 patients who qualify, saying that the treatment gives them a better chance of staying out of the hospital and could lower statewide hospitalization rates until more people become vaccinated.

Mandi Cai contributed to this report.

Join us Sept. 20-25 at the 2021 Texas Tribune Festival. Tickets are on sale now for this multi-day celebration of big, bold ideas about politics, public policy and the day’s news, curated by The Texas Tribune’s award-winning journalists. Learn more.

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The team, led by the CDC’s Dr. Jefferson Jones, set out to determine how close the US might be to some kind of herd immunity — although they do not claim to have any kind of handle on that yet.

They worked with 17 blood collection organizations working in all 50 states plus Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico to test blood covering 74% of the population. In the end, they tested about 1.4 million samples.

In July 2020, before any vaccine was available, 3.5% of samples carried antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. That rose to 11.5% by December, they reported in the medical journal JAMA. By May, 83.3% of samples had antibodies to the virus, most of them from vaccination.

And while in July 2020, blood surveillance indicated the US was only counting one infection out of every three true infections, that fell to one in two a year later.

This was all pre-Delta, the researchers caution. Plus, they didn’t measure the other part of the human response — one involving cells known as T-cells — and one that might induce broader immunity. But knowing who has antibodies can help inform public health efforts.

“Several large studies have shown that among individuals who are seropositive from prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, COVID-19 incidence is reduced by 80% to 95%, similar to vaccine efficacy estimates,” they noted.

“The study will continue until at least December 2021, and results will be made available on the CDC’s website,” they wrote.

Covid-19 hospitalizations remain high, but there are signs of improvement, HHS data show

Covid-19 hospitalizations in the United States have been rising steadily since early July, but are starting to show signs of improvement, data from the US Department of Health and Human Services shows.

Total hospitalizations nearly tripled in July and doubled again in August, according to HHS data, and for the past eight Sundays, total hospitalizations were an average of 25% higher than the week before.

But over the past seven days, total hospitalizations in the US grew by only 2%. In fact, there were 134 fewer new admissions during the week of August 24 than there were during the previous week.

Together, Covid-19 hospitalizations in Florida and Texas account for nearly 30% of current hospitalizations across the country. Hospitalizations in Florida have declined 11% over the past week, and hospitalizations in Texas have steadied, contributing heavily to improvements in national trends.

But hospitalizations remain perilously high; there are currently 102,804 people hospitalized for Covid-19 in the United States, 72% of the way to the peak from mid-January, according to HHS data. Overall, hospitals across the country are nearly three-quarters full and ICUs are about 80% fully.

At least nine states have had record high hospitalizations in recent days, reaching peaks higher than any other point during the pandemic, including Georgia and Tennessee, where hospitalizations continue to rise. Most of these states have fully vaccinated a smaller share of their residents than the US overall. In Georgia and Tennessee, about 42% of the population is fully vaccinated, compared to about 53% of the US population overall, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More than 500,000 children tested positive for Covid-19 in 3 weeks

More than 500,000 children tested positive for Covid-19 in the US from August 5 to August 26, according to state data collected by the American Academy of Pediatrics. At least 203,962 of those cases were reported in the week of August 19 to August 26; In late June, one weekly reported number was just shy of 8,500. With concerns building over safely allowing children to return to in-person learning at schools, health experts agree that mask mandates are an effective tool in stemming infections.

“The virus is raging in all these children who are unvaccinated, which is why in schools mask mandates are so important,” CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner told Jake Tapper last week, pointing out that inoculation rates are also low among adolescents who are eligible. “They have no other protection. They’re literally sitting ducks.”

More states and school districts across the country are imposing mask and vaccine mandates, while others are working to limit Covid-19 exposure among the unvaccinated. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Tuesday plans to implement mandatory weekly Covid-19 testing for state school staff who are not vaccinated.

“We all need to remain vigilant to protect each other – and that means coming in to get your shot and booster shot, wearing masks in indoor spaces, and exercising basic safety measures that we are all familiar with by now,” Hochul said.

For teens ages 12 and up attending classes, it remains imperative for them to receive vaccinations to help curb the spread of Covid-19, officials say. And vaccine mandates, while unpopular to some, may be a necessary step.

“I believe that mandating vaccines for children to appear in school is a good idea,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN this week, noting that this would not be a radical idea to impose.

“This is not something new. We have mandates in many places in schools, particularly public schools, that if in fact you want a child to come in — we’ve done this for decades and decades requiring (vaccines for) polio, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis,” Fauci said. “So this would not be something new, requiring vaccinations for children to come to school.”

Officials expect additional vaccine data soon

Cognizant of the anxiousness felt by some parents and guardians sending their children back to school unvaccinated, health officials say they are working expediently to review whether the age of vaccine eligibility can be lowered.

If authorized, the CDC would move quickly to recommend the use of Covid-19 vaccines in younger children, agency director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said.

“Everybody is looking at this with urgency. Everyone recognizes how important it is for those children to have access to vaccines,” Walensky said during a National Parent Teacher Association town hall Wednesday.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) must approve or authorize the vaccines in younger children first, Walensky noted. And the vaccine makers must make the case to the FDA with clinical trial data.

“My understanding of the timeline is pretty consistent with what is being said — the middle of fall is my understanding, early fall is when we will anticipate seeing the data — and then it will lie with the hands of the FDA. And I’m hopeful for the end of the year,” she said.

Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine has been fully approved by the FDA for Americans 16 and older, and emergency use authorization has been granted for those 12 and up. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are under emergency use authorization only for adults 18 and older.

Moderna announced last week that it had completed its submission to the FDA for full approval, and has also filed with the FDA for an emergency use authorization for its vaccine in people age 12 and older.

Clinical trials of vaccines for children under the age of 12 are ongoing.

Fauci said Wednesday that the FDA should have the data to consider authorizing a Covid-19 vaccine for children under 12 by the end of September.

“We should have enough of the data to examine and make a decision as we get into late September, the beginning of October,” Fauci said. “Then the data will be presented to the FDA, and the FDA will make a determination whether they will grant that under an emergency use authorization or some other mechanism.”

When asked whether a Covid-19 vaccine will be authorized for young children before Thanksgiving, Fauci said he hopes so, but does not want to get ahead of the FDA.

CNN’s Naomi Thomas, Deidre McPhillips, Lauren Mascarenhas, Jacqueline Howard, Maggie Fox, Amanda Sealy, Lauren del Valle and Madeline Holcombe contributed to this report.

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Alaska on Wednesday reported its second-highest daily tally of COVID-19 cases as statewide virus hospitalizations reached a new record high for the second day in a row.

There were 801 new coronavirus cases reported Wednesday statewide, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services dashboard. The only time Alaska recorded more cases in one day was Dec. 4, with 906 cases.

Widespread transmission means it is difficult to pinpoint specific outbreaks, a state epidemiologist said during a public information call Wednesday.

“COVID is everywhere,” said Louisa Castrodale, an epidemiologist with the state health department. “Events where there are people in close proximity to other people, that’s where we’re seeing transmission happen. And when there is so much activity, people can have three or four exposures … and it might not be clear where their source of COVID was.”

By Wednesday, the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association was reporting at least 166 people hospitalized with COVID-19 around the state — higher than at any point in the pandemic, including previous surges. On Tuesday, the state reported 152 hospitalized with COVID-19, and over the weekend, 151.

Health officials say Alaska hospitals continue to operate under unsustainable levels of stress, citing severe staff shortages and the recent influx in COVID-19 patients as causing considerable capacity challenges.

Hospitals are reporting lengthy ER wait times, sporadic surgery postponements and an exhausted, burnt-out workforce.

Most recent COVID-19 hospitalizations have occurred among people who are unvaccinated. In July, 80% of virus-related hospitalizations involved people who were not fully vaccinated.

[Unvaccinated Americans shouldn’t travel during Labor Day weekend, CDC says]

Four new virus-related resident deaths were also recorded Wednesday, though it was not immediately clear how recently they occurred. In all, 435 Alaskans and 13 nonresidents have died since the pandemic arrived in Alaska in spring 2020.

In Anchorage, amid a communitywide spike in cases, more firefighters are calling in sick with COVID-19, the Anchorage Fire Department said, though specifics were scarce.

”Our workforce is a cross section of our community, and the result of that is an increase in cases within our employees,” assistant chief Alex Boyd said. “We have seen an increase in responders calling in sick with symptoms and an increase in members taking COVID tests as a result of routine pre-work health screening.”

The department did not answer how many cases have been reported among staff, or how many are currently active and in which fire stations.

A rise in use of sick leave time is not having an adverse impact on fire department responses, and no services have been reduced, Boyd said. The department is “benefiting from a high workforce vaccination rate among our first responders,” though the department did not say what the vaccination rate is.

The Anchorage Police Department isn’t seeing a rise in COVID-19 cases or time off among officers that would affect operations, deputy chief Gerard Asselin said. If that did happen, a plan is in place to shift officers on details like traffic and school officers to answer patrol calls, he said.

The department isn’t keeping track of the vaccination rate among officers.

By Wednesday, about 61% of Alaskans 12 and older had received at least one vaccine dose, and 55% were considered fully vaccinated.

Of all tests conducted over the last week, 7.5% came back positive.

Daily News reporter Michelle Theriault Boots contributed.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Stanley’s illness was disclosed earlier this week and Simmons’ was disclosed on Wednesday.

Simmons is said to be experiencing “mild symptoms,” according to a statement from the band.

The tour is expected to resume on September 9 in Irvine, California. The band and crew will be isolating for the next 10 days out of precaution, the statement added.

The postponed dates include shows that were set to take place in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin.

The band previously postponed a show in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania after news of Stanley’s positive test was disclosed.

The band, via a previous statement, had said that both the band and the crew on tour were fully vaccinated and “operated in a bubble” independently to safeguard everyone as much as possible between shows. Stanley has since said on social media that he’s recovered after experiencing symptoms that were “mild compared to many others.”
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