OSHKOSH, Wisc.(SPECTRUM NEWS) - Health officials in Winnebago County are seeing something unusual in a recent spike of COVID-19 cases: young people.

About 50 percent of new cases in the county are tied to people ages 20 to 29.

“We’re seeing rates that are far higher than we’d normally expect and far higher than we see in any other age group at this time,” says Doug Gieryn, who heads the Winnebago County Health Department. “We’re also noting the majority of those cases - about 80 percent of them - are in the City of Oshkosh.”

That has health officials working with local employers, the Tavern League and the University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh, to communicate the continued need for face masks, social distancing and good hand washing among young people.

“I think the potential for it to be more serious is always there,” Gieryn says. “It’s how well we can reach the population and how well we can help them understand that physical distancing and mask wearing — especially when they’re indoors and at work — is really important.”

Dr. Ryan Westergaard of the Wisconsin Bureau of Communicable Diseases, said the state is tracking a number of clusters and spikes around the state in both workplaces and communities. He’s confident in the ability of local and state agencies to keep these from becoming larger outbreaks.

“We’re seeing those small clusters of outbreaks and that’s a risk that’s probably not going to go away until we have really flattened the curve to almost nothing,” he says during a briefing Thursday.

Winnebago County made a New York Times list this week as one of several communities around the nation facing the potential of an outbreak.

That has Gieryn and others stressing the importance of continued adherence to COVID-19 mitigation efforts by individuals.

“While (young people) may not become tremendously ill from COVID themselves, they really have the ability to transmit it to someone else and that can have a multiplying effect within the community,” he says.