Even with a few days left in the month, October marked the highest month of COVID-19 cases in Grant County, EMA Director Bob Jackson said.
This is the second month in a row that the number of COVID cases has reached a record high per month, as approximately a quarter of all cases up to that point were reported in the month of September.
At a Wednesday press conference, Jackson said the county has reported a total of 1,816 COVID-19 cases since March and 40 deaths, with one new death reported this week.
Over the past seven days, the county is averaging 24 cases per day with a 16.8 positivity rate of those tested. Over the past 14 days, the county is averaging 21 cases per day but reports a 29.5 percent positivity rate of those tested, an alarmingly high rate.
Health officer Dr. William David Moore said there are currently 10 COVID patients at Marion General Hospital, with one possibly on a ventilator, a couple in the intensive care unit and a few in the step down unit. He said overall patients are continuing to move through the hospital system and there are still reserve capabilities and resources for a surge in cases needing hospitalization.
Jackson said the county is still in the orange on the state’s color-coded system this week, but without a change it will most likely move to red where the state recommends putting restrictions back in place.
“We are seeing widespread infection across the county. Really it’s not that we can hone in on one or two things, literally it’s everywhere,” Jackson said. “We need everybody’s cooperation for some of the things that we’d like to do to help that.”
Moore said two factors go into the color-coded system: positivity rate and the number of currently infected individuals per 100,000 residents. Grant County is already in the red in terms of currently infected individuals, and he said he is “quite concerned” the positivity rate will increase to fully be in the red zone where restrictions are recommended.
Moore said while some hotspots have been self-reported to the health department, in general some of the increased cases may be traced back to family trips on fall break as well as COVID fatigue and being tired of the virus leading to a false sense of security and decreased following of guidelines.
The Emergency Operations Center has identified a five-step process for helping manage hotspots and outbreaks in the county, Jackson said. Organizations, businesses, schools or any other groups experiencing a surge should identify infected people; isolate those people; contact trace, quarantine and isolate those who came in contact; disinfect their spaces; and then work to reopen, he said.
While the state has taken over the big picture contact tracing, Jackson said local groups conducting internal contact tracing will be a huge boost in getting the virus under control in the county. He noted the county schools have conducted thorough contact tracing determining who was in close contact with infected individuals and informing people when to quarantine, and because of that they have avoided major outbreaks in the schools.
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