According to a just-released report from the American Academy of Pediatrics, there were 121,427 child COVID cases last week, which is 14 times more than the number of cases for the week ending June 24. Since the beginning of July, the number of child COVID cases has been steadily increasing. According to Dr. Peter Hotez, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, these numbers “are just the beginning. This is happening before school starts. This is happening now.” When Houston’s independent school district opens on Aug. 23, he warned, “that’s going to be a huge accelerant,” he told CNN. Hotez described the U.S. being at “a screaming level of virus transmission” right now. From past epidemics, he said, it’s known that 80 to 85% of the population has to be vaccinated. “The best way to do this is to vaccinate your way out of it in collaboration with masks. You can’t be either/or—the only way to defeat this virus is to do both.”