Trick-Or-Treating A Go With County COVID-19 Case Count ‘Steady’
September 30, 2020 at 10:28 p.m.
Trick-Or-Treating A Go With County COVID-19 Case Count ‘Steady’
By David [email protected]
Mayor Joe Thallemer on Wednesday during the biweekly press conference on the coronavirus pandemic answered the question that’s been on some people’s minds for the past couple weeks about the holiday festivities.
“Tentatively, and I underline tentatively, the city and our partnership with the town of Winona Lake, we’ve discussed with the Health Department, we will tentatively be having trick-or-treating on Saturday, Oct. 31, from 5:30 to 7:30 (p.m.),” he said.
Thallemer said they will be looking at and following the local COVID-19 numbers.
“We are also going to be coming out with some guidelines and recommendations as we get closer to Halloween on safe practices and certain things we’d like to see folks do if they’d like to participate,” he said. More information is to come.
Kosciusko County Health Department Public Health Officer Dr. William Remington said the county’s case count is “fairly steady” with over 1,200 cases.
“We had a community event in the last week that was a spreading event. Many participants of that social event are COVID positive or are suspected of COVID,” he said. “Not to point fingers at the event or the organizer of that event, but just to say it still happens. It’s still around. It’s a contagious virus and it sometimes just doesn’t take much in indoor congregate settings. So please be wary of that, particularly the indoor congregate settings.”
Remington reminded people to wear masks, practice social distancing and frequently wash hands as best as possible.
The state counts also are steady, which is disappointing because that means the virus isn’t going away, he said. There’s a hot spot in southwestern Indiana, but Kosciusko County isn’t a hot spot as of last week. The county’s positivity rate has come down.
“We’re looking OK, but it has not gone away,” Remington said.
On case fatality rate, he said that according to information from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a person who is 85 and older, their death from COVID is 630 times the average; 0 to 4 years old is nine times lower.
“So age is the strongest demographic risk in thus our nursing homes,” he said. “We are going to be extremely protective as a public health strategy toward nursing homes for quite some time.”
In the general population, Remington said “perhaps” they’ll ease out of the 14-day quarantine to a seven-day quarantine for those close contacts who aren’t ill. That may be coming soon, but for now it is still 14 days.
He said nationwide, “we’re still heading in a better direction.” April was “horrible,” with surges in June and July, but the numbers are coming down again. Mortality data does take a while with deaths two months ago from infection just now being reported.
“So it is a lagging indicator. But even having said that, I see an improvement in the mortality aggregate for this nation since April for sure. And since June and July. Condolences to those in our community who have lost a loved one,” he said. “Please be a good citizen: Wear a mask for others. Be gracious that way. We just need to keep our head on longer. I wish this was going away, but it is not.”
KCHD communicable disease nurse Teresa Reed then talked about the virus and county schools. She also provided a handout.
“One of the things that I just wanted to bring up is that unpredictability is the word of the week. As we watch, there’s just been this recent uptick that may be due to the social event. I’m not quite sure if that’s all of it right now or if there’s more going on,” she said.
She encouraged people to take precautions, including staying home if a person is not feeling well.
“If you attend school and have symptoms, you take out a lot of your classmates. It’s just a hardship. The same for adults. You cause illness, you cause cascades of illness that may not be serious for you but may be serious for others that will eventually come from that cascade,” Reed said.
There have been 44 positive COVID-19 cases in the first six weeks of open schools in the county as of Sept. 28, with 298 individuals quarantined by the KCHD, she said.
Last week, the total cases in Kosciusko County was 60.
“The cautionary tale this week is because yesterday we had 31 cases reported, so more than half of last week’s cases were reported yesterday (Tuesday),” she said. “And there was a minor trend up before that. On the 27th there was 11 cases, which is a little higher than it trended last week; and 12 cases on the 28th. So we have a little uptick, I’m just not quite sure why yet.”
In local school children, she said most of them have a very mild illness that lasts less than four days but that will continue to be monitored. Reed also noted that some school children are reporting extended fatigue, which lasts longer than two weeks.
Speaking on schools, Bowen Center President and CEO Kurt Carlson said he just spoke with a Syracuse school official Tuesday who was very concerned about the mental health of bus drivers. Another school was concerned about teachers who are doing some classes in-person and some remotely. He heard school teachers are able to talk to each other and give each other support, but school bus drivers are all alone and tend to be retired persons anyway.
“We have employee assistance programs, as well as student assistance programs, so in schools that have the employee assistance program, those employees can seek help and have up to three pre-paid sessions at no cost to them. So that particular school system I was talking to – Syracuse – they’re going to encourage the bus drivers to do that because they’re seeing the impact (the pandemic) has had on them,” Carlson said.
He said teachers and school officials are feeling stressed and that’s a population he was particularly concerned about now.
Mayor Joe Thallemer on Wednesday during the biweekly press conference on the coronavirus pandemic answered the question that’s been on some people’s minds for the past couple weeks about the holiday festivities.
“Tentatively, and I underline tentatively, the city and our partnership with the town of Winona Lake, we’ve discussed with the Health Department, we will tentatively be having trick-or-treating on Saturday, Oct. 31, from 5:30 to 7:30 (p.m.),” he said.
Thallemer said they will be looking at and following the local COVID-19 numbers.
“We are also going to be coming out with some guidelines and recommendations as we get closer to Halloween on safe practices and certain things we’d like to see folks do if they’d like to participate,” he said. More information is to come.
Kosciusko County Health Department Public Health Officer Dr. William Remington said the county’s case count is “fairly steady” with over 1,200 cases.
“We had a community event in the last week that was a spreading event. Many participants of that social event are COVID positive or are suspected of COVID,” he said. “Not to point fingers at the event or the organizer of that event, but just to say it still happens. It’s still around. It’s a contagious virus and it sometimes just doesn’t take much in indoor congregate settings. So please be wary of that, particularly the indoor congregate settings.”
Remington reminded people to wear masks, practice social distancing and frequently wash hands as best as possible.
The state counts also are steady, which is disappointing because that means the virus isn’t going away, he said. There’s a hot spot in southwestern Indiana, but Kosciusko County isn’t a hot spot as of last week. The county’s positivity rate has come down.
“We’re looking OK, but it has not gone away,” Remington said.
On case fatality rate, he said that according to information from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, a person who is 85 and older, their death from COVID is 630 times the average; 0 to 4 years old is nine times lower.
“So age is the strongest demographic risk in thus our nursing homes,” he said. “We are going to be extremely protective as a public health strategy toward nursing homes for quite some time.”
In the general population, Remington said “perhaps” they’ll ease out of the 14-day quarantine to a seven-day quarantine for those close contacts who aren’t ill. That may be coming soon, but for now it is still 14 days.
He said nationwide, “we’re still heading in a better direction.” April was “horrible,” with surges in June and July, but the numbers are coming down again. Mortality data does take a while with deaths two months ago from infection just now being reported.
“So it is a lagging indicator. But even having said that, I see an improvement in the mortality aggregate for this nation since April for sure. And since June and July. Condolences to those in our community who have lost a loved one,” he said. “Please be a good citizen: Wear a mask for others. Be gracious that way. We just need to keep our head on longer. I wish this was going away, but it is not.”
KCHD communicable disease nurse Teresa Reed then talked about the virus and county schools. She also provided a handout.
“One of the things that I just wanted to bring up is that unpredictability is the word of the week. As we watch, there’s just been this recent uptick that may be due to the social event. I’m not quite sure if that’s all of it right now or if there’s more going on,” she said.
She encouraged people to take precautions, including staying home if a person is not feeling well.
“If you attend school and have symptoms, you take out a lot of your classmates. It’s just a hardship. The same for adults. You cause illness, you cause cascades of illness that may not be serious for you but may be serious for others that will eventually come from that cascade,” Reed said.
There have been 44 positive COVID-19 cases in the first six weeks of open schools in the county as of Sept. 28, with 298 individuals quarantined by the KCHD, she said.
Last week, the total cases in Kosciusko County was 60.
“The cautionary tale this week is because yesterday we had 31 cases reported, so more than half of last week’s cases were reported yesterday (Tuesday),” she said. “And there was a minor trend up before that. On the 27th there was 11 cases, which is a little higher than it trended last week; and 12 cases on the 28th. So we have a little uptick, I’m just not quite sure why yet.”
In local school children, she said most of them have a very mild illness that lasts less than four days but that will continue to be monitored. Reed also noted that some school children are reporting extended fatigue, which lasts longer than two weeks.
Speaking on schools, Bowen Center President and CEO Kurt Carlson said he just spoke with a Syracuse school official Tuesday who was very concerned about the mental health of bus drivers. Another school was concerned about teachers who are doing some classes in-person and some remotely. He heard school teachers are able to talk to each other and give each other support, but school bus drivers are all alone and tend to be retired persons anyway.
“We have employee assistance programs, as well as student assistance programs, so in schools that have the employee assistance program, those employees can seek help and have up to three pre-paid sessions at no cost to them. So that particular school system I was talking to – Syracuse – they’re going to encourage the bus drivers to do that because they’re seeing the impact (the pandemic) has had on them,” Carlson said.
He said teachers and school officials are feeling stressed and that’s a population he was particularly concerned about now.
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