Remington Says Kosciusko Has Avoided A Disaster ‘Thus Far’ With COVID-19
May 14, 2020 at 2:23 a.m.
Remington Says Kosciusko Has Avoided A Disaster ‘Thus Far’ With COVID-19
By David [email protected]
“Testing to date, cumulative testing since the beginning of this pandemic, doubled in the last two weeks. So many more people are coming to test,” he said. “And as we hear the individual stories at the health department, the overall sense is that most of these are relatively minor cases yet a growing number of cases that have no symptoms at all. People were tested as part of a case contact approach, or an employer-driven mandate.”
He said that puts a “different set of lenses” on the county’s growing case count.
“I did some simple math, and even though we don’t perfectly know the total number of tests done week by week, our cumulative percent of tests positive as of Monday, was 4.5%. If you go back a month, it was 5.5%. If you look at the new tests, new positives in the last two weeks, we had 17 new positives in those two weeks out of 470 tests to give you 3.6% positive rate out of those tests,” Remington said.
He said that while the county’s case count is increasing, he didn’t sense there was a disaster at the door.
“It’s reflecting a different motif to testing and a different availability of testing,” he said.
Early Wednesday morning, he said he looked at national data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 website.
“Some key metrics are improving across the country, if you want to take a 10,000-foot view. So number one, regarding the virus, there is a decreased percentage of tests positive nationwide,” he said.
Outpatient emergency room visits, attributed to COVID-19-like symptomatology – not confirmed cases but people with the symptoms – “that percentage has decreased again when compared to the week previous,” he said.
Looking at the deaths attributed to COVID-19-like pneumonias or influenza-like pneumonias, the percentage of deaths has also decreased.
“So on three broad parameters ... it’s improving in the aggregate. That’s not to diminish the feel of the occasional bad outcroppings, and there are those. We hear of those in the news. We do not have a bad outcropping cluster of cases in this county. I’m thankful to hear that from my communicable disease staff and I’m happy to report that to you,” Remington stated.
As the case count goes up, he said it makes it more challenging for small local health departments to do “very quick and nimble” case investigation and contact review. That will be turned over, per a state contract, within a week for Kosciusko County.
“We will still be involved as a health department. We expect lots of questions still coming to us,” Remington said, adding that the case contact work remains important.
“So if you have a positive test, whether you have symptoms or not, the traditional playbook is you manage that as a true positive. You isolate that patient and you quarantine, perhaps modifying that quarantine directive to close contacts,” he said. “That will continue to be the playbook, and I imagine that will change as time goes on as the severity of these disease clusters perhaps changes. Some of that may change, too.”
Remington said people should look beyond the growing case numbers for the county because it doesn’t do the topic justice.
As of noon Wednesday, Kosciusko County had two more positive cases, for a total of 51, with still only one death and at least 20 cases that have recovered.
“Look at the aggregate, look at the percent positives if we can get to that. Look at the hospitalizations and deaths. Look at the feel in our frontline venues: offices, emergency rooms, urgent care clinics. And the overall feel is, it’s better. We have avoided thus far in this county a disaster. I’m very thankful for that,” he said.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer said part of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s requirement as recovery continues is the “institution of this centralized or state central system of contact tracing.”
Contact tracing is the investigation of who a COVID-19-positive person has come into contact with in an effort to try to manage the spread.
“Are there statistics with contact tracing that will show changes or progress? Or is contact tracing just an investigational technique that will try and keep everything down, it’s a tool that we have? Will there be statistics that are available from a centralized contact tracing effort that will show progress or the other way?” Thallemer asked Remington.
Remington replied he was sure there will be.
“If nothing else, the growth of percent positive cases. The growth, or decline, of hospitalizations,” he said. “You have to step back and look at some end results of all that ground work, if you will. The case investigation, the contact work, all of that, if done correctly, we hope will mitigate hospitalizations, deaths and percent of test positive.”
He said it will definitely generate some data, but whether or not that data will come back to the county is to be seen.
Thallemer asked how the state contract will be applied locally and will there be local involvement or will local stakeholders just be given results. He assumed the data will be exchanged or accessed by the local health department and asked Remington if he knew how that would work.
Remington replied he didn’t know “perfectly,” but it will play out and the health department will learn as it goes.
“We anticipate to be able to have our finger on the pulse on the metrics. ... We anticipate that we will still have many questions coming to us at the local level with each of these case contact investigations, whether it be a cluster of cases in a particular congregate setting of some sort. I’m sure that will come back to play pretty heavily with us as the local health department,” Remington said.
He expected the health department will still get phone calls and still be involved.
“Testing to date, cumulative testing since the beginning of this pandemic, doubled in the last two weeks. So many more people are coming to test,” he said. “And as we hear the individual stories at the health department, the overall sense is that most of these are relatively minor cases yet a growing number of cases that have no symptoms at all. People were tested as part of a case contact approach, or an employer-driven mandate.”
He said that puts a “different set of lenses” on the county’s growing case count.
“I did some simple math, and even though we don’t perfectly know the total number of tests done week by week, our cumulative percent of tests positive as of Monday, was 4.5%. If you go back a month, it was 5.5%. If you look at the new tests, new positives in the last two weeks, we had 17 new positives in those two weeks out of 470 tests to give you 3.6% positive rate out of those tests,” Remington said.
He said that while the county’s case count is increasing, he didn’t sense there was a disaster at the door.
“It’s reflecting a different motif to testing and a different availability of testing,” he said.
Early Wednesday morning, he said he looked at national data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 website.
“Some key metrics are improving across the country, if you want to take a 10,000-foot view. So number one, regarding the virus, there is a decreased percentage of tests positive nationwide,” he said.
Outpatient emergency room visits, attributed to COVID-19-like symptomatology – not confirmed cases but people with the symptoms – “that percentage has decreased again when compared to the week previous,” he said.
Looking at the deaths attributed to COVID-19-like pneumonias or influenza-like pneumonias, the percentage of deaths has also decreased.
“So on three broad parameters ... it’s improving in the aggregate. That’s not to diminish the feel of the occasional bad outcroppings, and there are those. We hear of those in the news. We do not have a bad outcropping cluster of cases in this county. I’m thankful to hear that from my communicable disease staff and I’m happy to report that to you,” Remington stated.
As the case count goes up, he said it makes it more challenging for small local health departments to do “very quick and nimble” case investigation and contact review. That will be turned over, per a state contract, within a week for Kosciusko County.
“We will still be involved as a health department. We expect lots of questions still coming to us,” Remington said, adding that the case contact work remains important.
“So if you have a positive test, whether you have symptoms or not, the traditional playbook is you manage that as a true positive. You isolate that patient and you quarantine, perhaps modifying that quarantine directive to close contacts,” he said. “That will continue to be the playbook, and I imagine that will change as time goes on as the severity of these disease clusters perhaps changes. Some of that may change, too.”
Remington said people should look beyond the growing case numbers for the county because it doesn’t do the topic justice.
As of noon Wednesday, Kosciusko County had two more positive cases, for a total of 51, with still only one death and at least 20 cases that have recovered.
“Look at the aggregate, look at the percent positives if we can get to that. Look at the hospitalizations and deaths. Look at the feel in our frontline venues: offices, emergency rooms, urgent care clinics. And the overall feel is, it’s better. We have avoided thus far in this county a disaster. I’m very thankful for that,” he said.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer said part of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s requirement as recovery continues is the “institution of this centralized or state central system of contact tracing.”
Contact tracing is the investigation of who a COVID-19-positive person has come into contact with in an effort to try to manage the spread.
“Are there statistics with contact tracing that will show changes or progress? Or is contact tracing just an investigational technique that will try and keep everything down, it’s a tool that we have? Will there be statistics that are available from a centralized contact tracing effort that will show progress or the other way?” Thallemer asked Remington.
Remington replied he was sure there will be.
“If nothing else, the growth of percent positive cases. The growth, or decline, of hospitalizations,” he said. “You have to step back and look at some end results of all that ground work, if you will. The case investigation, the contact work, all of that, if done correctly, we hope will mitigate hospitalizations, deaths and percent of test positive.”
He said it will definitely generate some data, but whether or not that data will come back to the county is to be seen.
Thallemer asked how the state contract will be applied locally and will there be local involvement or will local stakeholders just be given results. He assumed the data will be exchanged or accessed by the local health department and asked Remington if he knew how that would work.
Remington replied he didn’t know “perfectly,” but it will play out and the health department will learn as it goes.
“We anticipate to be able to have our finger on the pulse on the metrics. ... We anticipate that we will still have many questions coming to us at the local level with each of these case contact investigations, whether it be a cluster of cases in a particular congregate setting of some sort. I’m sure that will come back to play pretty heavily with us as the local health department,” Remington said.
He expected the health department will still get phone calls and still be involved.
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