Popular summer camp goes on pause after COVID-19 outbreak in Wynnewood, Pa.

When Kaiserman JCC summer camp returns from a self-imposed pause, they'll require masks for all, no matter the location or vaccination status.

This story originally appeared on 6abc.

A popular summer camp in Wynnewood, Montgomery County, is on pause after ten campers and staffers tested positive for COVID-19.

“It has really broken our hearts this week to not have camp in session,” said Alan Scher, the CEO at the Kaiserman JCC. “We made the decision proactively on our own this weekend to pause camp to ensure that we could thoroughly address a COVID outbreak.”

The Kaiserman JCC has been running a summer camp for the past 50 years, including last summer, when most were closed.

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Luckily these 10 cases are either mild or asymptomatic, but it’s forcing them to rethink their protocol.

“We ran camp last summer, we were one of the few camps that did, and we did it successfully without a single case of Coronavirus,” Scher said. “So we came into this summer feeling like we had a handle on these things.”

This summer, the camp is following the current CDC guidance, which allowed vaccinated individuals to go maskless, indoors and outdoors.

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“But what we’ve seen, and what I think, unfortunately, too many are seeing right now that those guidelines are not stringent enough,” Scher added. “We’re going to be masking everybody at camp. Listen, we’ve all been living with this for upwards of 17 months now, so we know what works. Everyone is going to have masks on indoors and outdoors.”

When they return Monday from this self-imposed pause, they’re going back to last summer’s stringent protocol.

That means masks for all, no matter the location or vaccination status, and smaller pods of socially distanced kids.

One thing won’t change. There will be fun because the camp says they know how desperately the kids need it right now.

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