GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) – As students head back to school and cooler temperatures come this fall and winter, COVID-19 cases are on the rise here in North Carolina.

Laavon Johnson has four kids and says there’s more burden parents face nowadays when it comes to vaccinating their kids.

“It’s totally different from back in the day because they require so much more, as far as the immunizations. “They require a lot more,” Johnson explained.

According to Wes Gray, the director of the Pitt County Public Health Department, for the past five weeks, COVID cases have increased in short waves.

“A little bit of a higher increase than we’ve seen recently,” Gray said. “Usually, we see about a three-week increase then it starts to go back down again. Right now, I just want to see how we are going with this trend, and if it continues into the fall as we start to see flu cases pick up in September.”

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that North Carolina is one of 27 states with very high levels of COVID-19 in wastewater.

In Greenville, 128 million viral gene copies per person in wastewater were reported by August 7th, according to NCDHHS.

With increasing activities, the CDC recommends vaccinating children as young as 6 months old, but parents like Johnson are still skeptical.

“Definitely not young kids only because with the vaccinations that I had, I know one of them sent me to the hospital, and the way I felt I can just imagine how a child would feel going through what I went through so I definitely would not suggest it for a young child,” Johnson said.

According to Gray, The COVID Bridge Access Program, which provided free vaccines for uninsured people through federal funding, is ending at the end of August, which could affect immunization rates.