Numbers Show COVID Testing ‘Stable,’ Vaccinations Sluggish
Numbers Show COVID Testing ‘Stable,’ Vaccinations Sluggish
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Numbers Show COVID Testing ‘Stable,’ Vaccinations SluggishSuccess and failure are often determined by numbers, and many numbers regarding the COVID-19 pandemic locally were provided at the biweekly press conference at City Hall Wednesday.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer threw out the first number in his opening remarks. “We just completed our FEMA mobile test clinic last week down at Central Park, Tuesday through Saturday. I haven’t gotten the numbers, but even with walk-ins, I don’t think we hit a 1,000, but I don’t have a specific number.”
He said he visited the vaccination clinic at Center Lake Pavilion twice and the first day was a “really good day,” but it trailed off from there. He said turnout was “probably less than I anticipated.”
Even with just 900 to 1,000 vaccinated, Thallemer said that was a “great thing.” Those who received the first round of vaccinations will need to return to the Pavilion for the second round May 10-15.
“Things went well, and we’re glad to be able to add to the vaccination numbers in the county. Certainly need to continue that push,” Thallemer said.
Kosciusko County Public Health Officer Dr. William Remington said the FEMA vaccine site was a “critical asset” for the community.
The county’s case count, since its first known case on March 26, 2020, is up to 9,239. Two weeks ago, it was at 9,022.
“We’ve had a couple more deaths, unfortunately, since we last met and condolences to those families and loved ones,” Remington said. Two weeks ago, there were 113 deaths, but that’s increased to 115.
“Lots of testing. Much of it is still on the backs of not only our local hospital but the Bowen Health Center Clinic and their testing site at the fairgrounds,” he said.
Kosciusko County remains at a yellow advisory, the same as two weeks ago, per the State Department of Health. The county’s seven-day rolling positivity is at 4.2%, also the same as two weeks ago. At the county’s worst, the positivity rate was at 26% in November.
“Our seven-day new case average is around 17, but lower than 134 in November, and up a little bit from two weeks ago (of 15),” Remington said. “Our weekly cases per 100,000 are up just a little bit from two weeks ago.” Two weeks ago, it was at 128 per 100,000, but this week it’s at 138.
The “hot” news in District 2 – which includes Kosciusko – is that hospitalizations are up. “So that’s Elkhart County, St. Joe County. Those ICUs are filling up again with COVID cases, unfortunately. Not quite as much in District 3, which is the Allen County direction, interestingly.”
The counties of Elkhart, Whitley, LaPorte and Steuben went in the wrong direction to the orange advisory.
In Indiana, over 4 million doses of the vaccination have been given, Remington said, with over 1.7 million people fully immunized. That’s up from 3.4 million and 1.4 million respectively two weeks ago. There are more than 700 vaccine sites statewide, which Remington said was amazing.
In Kosciusko County, “We are up a few percentage points in first doses and fully vaccinated,” he said. Much of that was done at the local Health Department clinic – almost 18,000 doses administered for COVID since January.
“We’ve seen just in the last few days the demand for vaccine slack off just a bit. So we’re running in the last four clinic days around 60% of our capacity, so that is a new thing for us to see that,” Remington said, attributing it to “vaccine hesitancy, perhaps.” He said they will be looking at new ways to address that.
There are more variant strains of the virus being documented in the state – close to 1,000. Most of those are B117, he said. “We’re up from 356 known cases of that two weeks ago to double now – 768 – and that will continue to grow. I’ll just tell you that these variant strains will just have an increasingly stronger footprint among our cases in Indiana, as it is everywhere else,” Remington stated.
The vaccine sites now are generously supplied usually, he said, so walk-ins are more generously available and the state is trying to push that. Remington said, “Our own County Health Department COVID vaccine clinic is likewise now able to accommodate more generously walk-ups requesting vaccines without an appointment. So please do that. We love appointments, but if you forget and can’t seem to get around and make an appointment, just show up and we’ll immunize you.”
The Kosciusko County Health Department COVID-19 vaccine clinic at the K21 Health Pavilion is open for walk-in vaccines Monday through Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Walk-ins must arrive no later than 3:30 p.m. to receive a vaccine, according to information provided by the city Wednesday afternoon.
County Communicable Disease Nurse Teresa Reed provided a graph of the county’s COVID cases by week. Since the pandemic hit Kosciusko, the lowest number of cases was two April 12-18, 2020, with the highest being 898 cases the week of Nov. 15-21, 2020. There were 93 new cases the week of April 18-24, 2021.
“I’m really excited right now because I was worried four weeks ago about the masks coming off and spring break. So finding that we haven’t had an accelerated curve is very exciting to me,” she said.
Bowen Center CEO and President Kurt Carlson said testing at the Bowen Center testing site at the fairgrounds has stayed relatively stable at 200 to 250 tests per week. “This past week, it jumped up a little bit. I don’t know if there was a particular reason for that,” he said, suggesting that maybe it was because people returned from spring break and wanted to get tested.
In terms of the testing hotline – 574-347-4256 – Carlson said that’s also tapered off more recently. About 58% of the calls are from people who are only Spanish speakers.
Gamal Hernandez, the director of the Bowen Center test site, volunteered to be at the Center Lake Pavilion to reach out to the Spanish-speaking population and get them enrolled in the vaccination clinic April 24. “He was there on Saturday and many of the people he had spoken to and encouraged to get vaccinated from the Spanish-speaking population actually were there and he actually got to interact with them. That was gratifying for him, and it was a welcoming face/voice to those people who came to get their vaccine,” Carlson said.
The testing site at the fairgrounds and the hotline are open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday.
At the end of Wednesday’s press conference, Thallemer announced they will continue for at least another month.
