COVID-19 Rising Numbers A Concern To Local Officials
COVID-19 Rising Numbers A Concern To Local Officials
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
COVID-19 Rising Numbers A Concern To Local OfficialsCity and county officials agree that the rising, local COVID-19 numbers are a concern.
Teresa Reed, communicable disease nurse with the Kosciusko County Health Department, said the county has had an increase, particularly in the last three weeks with just under 100 positives each week.
“The good news is those didn’t continue to keep going up in an exponential fashion. They are currently staying at about 100. At the same time, the somber side of it is, a month ago, we had 86 cases, and this morning we had 419 cases,” she said Wednesday at the weekly COVID-19 pandemic press conference at Warsaw City Hall.
“We are aware that it is more circulating. A lot of the positives right now have been younger individuals, which gives us better outcomes, because they’re generally not as ill. I do want to reiterate to people to not underestimate this virus. For some people, this virus is devastating and deadly. We don’t want to forget about it. We want to keep protecting highest-risk individuals,” Reed said.
In the realm of trying to protect the highest-risk individuals, she said the state is testing all employees of nursing homes. In Indiana, 48% of its deaths have been from nursing homes, which is still significantly less than many other states, Reed said.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer said that while the statewide numbers appear to be declining, COVID-19 figures in Kosciusko County and the northern part of Indiana continue to rise.
“The message continues to be social distancing, wearing masks in public spaces and continuing to disinfect,” Thallemer said.
The city and county are using CARES Act funding to pay for testing for Kosciusko County residents at the three MedStat locations in the county – Warsaw, Syracuse and Nappanee. As of Wednesday morning, 160 drive-through tests have been taken at MedStat.
“So, obviously, with more availability, we certainly want to encourage more testing. Again, the testing is free if you’re not insured and it’s available with either a phone call or online signing up, and the testing can be done quickly at three locations,” Thallemer said.
Starting last week, he said over 7,000 four-page COVID-19 brochures were printed and distributed in English and Spanish to impacted residential areas, grocery stores, restaurants and other public facilities. Thallemer said the brochures talk about symptoms, testing, testing locations, quarantine, post-testing care and expectations of what happens when test results are given.
Reed said, “The next big challenge that we’re looking forward to is getting ready for schools to reopen, going through the documents involved in that.”
The document is publicly available online on the Indiana Department of Education website and is called “In Class.” It is continuously updated, she said.
United Way of Kosciusko President Darren Bickel provided a list of community resources for people who are struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic (see sidebar for list).
Later in the press conference, Reed said the recovery period varies a great deal by person.
“A lot of times for the statistics right now, what they’re using is a three-week time span, that it takes people three weeks to get better,” she said. “So, on some of the statistics, that’s the number we use. Originally, when our case counts were smaller, we were finding out who was recovered by actually calling each and every case and finding out who was better. But we just can’t manage that with 1.5 people.”
Some people literally only have symptoms for two days and then spend the next eight days recovering since they can’t resume their activities “for 10 days since we know people can shed virus for longer, even if they don’t have symptoms,” Reed said.
If someone is tested and they’re asymptomatic, they are asked to isolate for 10 days.
“We really want to make sure that they are not going to go ahead and get symptoms, so if they test positive, we try to watch. But you can have a variance. When they give instructions, they’ll say at least 10 days and at least three days, but sometimes people aren’t well in 10 days. Sometimes it takes two weeks. Sometimes it takes longer if they get a secondary infection or if they have a really bad case,” Reed said.
Some people believe they may have previously had COVID-19 and then recovered without knowing it, and some people say they would like to get an antibodies test to find out if they did.
“Tricks with the antibody testing is that it’s somewhat difficult for an individual to know if it’s purposeful for them. Because there’s so many new tests on the market, you have to make sure you have a test that’s going to give you accurate results. Some of them have some cross-reaction with other coronaviruses, which then if you think you’re immune and you willfully expose yourself, you may make yourself sick because you didn’t have the right kind of coronavirus,” she said.
The American Red Cross, when they take blood donations, are able to test and notify people of their antibody status, she said.
“And I would presume, since they’re after that plasma, that that would be a pretty solid test, which also benefits people by donating blood,” Reed said.
Bickel added, “Blood donations have struggled this whole pandemic so if people are thinking about giving blood, it’s still a big need. Particularly this time of year, a lot of those blood drives are held at schools and colleges so normally, in June or July it’s a slow time anyway, so this year even more so. But always a big need for that.”
Reed said the randomized testing in Indiana showed that 1.5% of people have the antibodies.
“Now, that’s only 1.5 out of 100 people, so a lot of the people who think they have it, they may have had it or it was a rough flu season, they may have had something else. They may have had something else, they may have had a different virus. So it gets hard. Not as many people probably had it as they think they had it, but, yes, there are people who had it and maybe immune. It’s kind of hard to tell. I have had seen people who were sure that they had it, but have tested positive since then,” Reed said.
