County May Not Have Reached Its COVID-19 Peak. Or It Might Have.
May 27, 2020 at 10:41 p.m.
County May Not Have Reached Its COVID-19 Peak. Or It Might Have.
By David [email protected]
He was asked about the peak Wednesday at the weekly press briefing on COVID-19 at Warsaw City Hall.
By noon Wednesday, the Kosciusko County Health Department received five new confirmed cases since Monday, giving the county a total of 99 positive cases and one death, according to the daily KCHD news release. There were almost 30 new cases over the Memorial Day weekend.
Remington said, “We don’t really know the number of cases historically, quite frankly. We’re in a different paradigm of testing altogether now, so our cases are highest now, week by week, and not because of just a surge in cases, just a lot more testing.
“That’s a great question. It’s really been hard to get at exactly where the surge has been,” Remington said. “As a clinician, in some tie-in with the frontline forces, if you will, of our small community, I really felt there was more pressure in the frontline six weeks ago. We’ll see where this latest surge is going in the next few days.”
The simple fit-the-curve model for Kosciusko County that came from experts downstate puts the county past the peak now, Remington said. “But that is a simple fit-the-curve model and who knows if it will play out or not.”
Now that the warmer weather is here and many people are thinking about summer, Remington was asked if the coronavirus was seasonal and might disappear like the flu seems to do.
“Many people ask me this. Is there going to be a seasonal nature to this latest coronavirus? And nobody knows,” he said. “Influenza is highly seasonal. It breaks those rules when it’s novel as it did in 2009. If you look at that flu curve, which still lingers on the (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) website, it’s a weird curve. That one falls out from all of the other years that we’ve tracked recently.”
He said 2009 was the first year a novel pathogen “comes out of its non-human reservoir and breaks all the rules. Then it settles in, at least with influenza, into a seasonal nature, but if a coronavirus does that, we don’t know.”
Earlier in the press briefing, Remington noted the case count “really jumped up” in the last week.
“The last two weeks, it had gone up and I had attributed it to a lot more testing. We’re doing so much more testing than we did six weeks ago, as you know, and the percentage positive, as best as we can get to that number, didn’t really seem to jump up until this last week,” he said.
He said he can’t attribute it just to the fact that there’s more testing being done.
“So I think we have seen a jump of cases because we’re doing more things socially, and we anticipated that,” Remington said.
He continues to “hold favor” to Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s reopening up plan, and said he was not suggesting that needed to be slowed down.
“But I just want to add a note of respect to what we’re seeing right now. We’re seeing more cases,” he said. “Sure, some of these new cases are asymptomatic and I don’t perfectly have that statistic for you today. But we’re seeing more clinical cases.”
He said he hadn’t heard about clinical cases in his office for two to three weeks before Tuesday.
“So I think it is here and it’s because we’re out doing more things together. So I would encourage people to try to stick to these themes you’ve been hearing: the social distancing, particularly with indoor settings. Try to avoid congregated and sustained indoor gatherings as much as you can. Wear a mask,” Remington advised.
While a person doesn’t need to wear a mask while jogging or walking a dog, he said people should wear them in stores, offices, etc. If a person can’t avoid a crowd in an outdoor gathering, they should wear a mask.
“You should try to prevent congregated, outdoor gatherings for a while,” he said, adding that handwashing remains an important thing to do regularly.
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He was asked about the peak Wednesday at the weekly press briefing on COVID-19 at Warsaw City Hall.
By noon Wednesday, the Kosciusko County Health Department received five new confirmed cases since Monday, giving the county a total of 99 positive cases and one death, according to the daily KCHD news release. There were almost 30 new cases over the Memorial Day weekend.
Remington said, “We don’t really know the number of cases historically, quite frankly. We’re in a different paradigm of testing altogether now, so our cases are highest now, week by week, and not because of just a surge in cases, just a lot more testing.
“That’s a great question. It’s really been hard to get at exactly where the surge has been,” Remington said. “As a clinician, in some tie-in with the frontline forces, if you will, of our small community, I really felt there was more pressure in the frontline six weeks ago. We’ll see where this latest surge is going in the next few days.”
The simple fit-the-curve model for Kosciusko County that came from experts downstate puts the county past the peak now, Remington said. “But that is a simple fit-the-curve model and who knows if it will play out or not.”
Now that the warmer weather is here and many people are thinking about summer, Remington was asked if the coronavirus was seasonal and might disappear like the flu seems to do.
“Many people ask me this. Is there going to be a seasonal nature to this latest coronavirus? And nobody knows,” he said. “Influenza is highly seasonal. It breaks those rules when it’s novel as it did in 2009. If you look at that flu curve, which still lingers on the (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) website, it’s a weird curve. That one falls out from all of the other years that we’ve tracked recently.”
He said 2009 was the first year a novel pathogen “comes out of its non-human reservoir and breaks all the rules. Then it settles in, at least with influenza, into a seasonal nature, but if a coronavirus does that, we don’t know.”
Earlier in the press briefing, Remington noted the case count “really jumped up” in the last week.
“The last two weeks, it had gone up and I had attributed it to a lot more testing. We’re doing so much more testing than we did six weeks ago, as you know, and the percentage positive, as best as we can get to that number, didn’t really seem to jump up until this last week,” he said.
He said he can’t attribute it just to the fact that there’s more testing being done.
“So I think we have seen a jump of cases because we’re doing more things socially, and we anticipated that,” Remington said.
He continues to “hold favor” to Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb’s reopening up plan, and said he was not suggesting that needed to be slowed down.
“But I just want to add a note of respect to what we’re seeing right now. We’re seeing more cases,” he said. “Sure, some of these new cases are asymptomatic and I don’t perfectly have that statistic for you today. But we’re seeing more clinical cases.”
He said he hadn’t heard about clinical cases in his office for two to three weeks before Tuesday.
“So I think it is here and it’s because we’re out doing more things together. So I would encourage people to try to stick to these themes you’ve been hearing: the social distancing, particularly with indoor settings. Try to avoid congregated and sustained indoor gatherings as much as you can. Wear a mask,” Remington advised.
While a person doesn’t need to wear a mask while jogging or walking a dog, he said people should wear them in stores, offices, etc. If a person can’t avoid a crowd in an outdoor gathering, they should wear a mask.
“You should try to prevent congregated, outdoor gatherings for a while,” he said, adding that handwashing remains an important thing to do regularly.
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