Anyone who believed that COVID-19 cases would magically disappear after election day as President Donald Trump said repeatedly while on the campaign trail in the days leading up to the election, must be sorely disappointed. COVID-19 cases are rising fast.
In the past few days, new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. topped 100,000 in a single day, then the next day blew past that to top 120,000 new cases in a single day. Hospitalizations are rising, death counts are rising, and not a single state has been spared.
Global numbers are rising: as Of today, Nov. 6, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has tracked 49,114,225 COVID-19 cases and 1,239,757 people have died.
While the U.S. leads the world in daily new cases, the Colorado Dept. of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) says cases are rising here too.
With COVID-19 numbers rising worldwide, it’s imperative that everyone practice distancing, wear a mask in public, and know where to get tested. United Nations art.
Chaffee County over the past two weeks has recorded dozens of new cases, with dozens of tests still to come in. Late Thursday afternoon during the COVID-19 leadership roundtable, Chaffee Director of Public Health Andrea Carlstrom said “we’re surrounded by a deterioration situation – we can’t escape that, and it flows into challenges for businesses and schools.”
“We’ve had 11 new cases as of today, 26 new cases in the past seven days, and 51 in the last two weeks,” said Carlstrom. “We’re at 3.69 positivity. We are ramping up testing as much as possible, but seeing a somewhat alarming trend of new cases. And these cases are people not necessarily fans of public health if you know what I mean.”
She noted that Wednesday two more, experienced public health directors, from Pitkin and Alamosa Counties, resigned. Public health directors and departments have taken abuse from a segment of the population that continues to claim – inaccurately– that COVID-19 is a hoax and blame public health departments for what they see as limits on their freedoms.
Chaffee County has submitted an organization plan to the state offices, as a proactive step should the COVID-19 situation worsen. The state has moved from its former COVID-19 number levels to colors. “We are in the yellow color, which we used to call level 2,” said Carlstrom. “One part is extremely important – it is up to local stakeholders to determine what schools look like, regardless of us moving to a more restrictive place on the COVID dial. At this moment the state government is holding off on a statewide stay at home.”
Carlstrom cautioned that the state, like the nation, is facing some serious healthcare challenges. She said the CDPHE held meetings this week with Governor Polis’s office and Dr. Debra Birx in which the emphasis is on developing a diverse strategy for testing because some tests meet the needs of different audiences. Chaffee County is moving to a combination of Curative tests and rapid testing options, combined with stronger tracing methods.
“We are needing to be more creative than ever,” said Carlstrom. “The modeling is dismal and hospitalizations are close to the peak in April and the state positivity rate has doubled over the last week. Death counts are expected to rise in the next couple of weeks. This week was worse than last week.”
Asked how concerned she is, Carlstrom struck a somber tone. “Things are going to get harder and this is getting concerning – older populations are increasingly becoming infected. Why? The virus is spreading faster and there is some level of seasonality. COVID fatigue is real, and we’ve got political resistance. The holidays are coming and indoor gatherings … while other counties are looking at curfews, that doesn’t fit here. The state has already limited social gatherings to groups of 10 and no more than two households. The state government is pleading with people to not do social gatherings with people outside your own household.”
Asked about what key messages she wants the general public to know, Carlstrom listed the concerns:
- The pandemic is worsening – it is NOT getting better. “We always assumed we’d see wave three around now – but not at this level.”
- We all need to do our part to limit interactions outside our households.
- As a county, we need to figure out how to cocoon our older and most vulnerable population.
- Holiday travel is risky right now.
- Heading into the holiday season the county’s epi curve is going to rise….” the Front Range hospitals are filling up and we’re trying to prevent lost lives and significant impact on the economy”.
“We aren’t in the position of some of the larger counties, we’ve lived through the shutdowns, hopefully, we are afforded some measure of local control, but what we do now to keep ourselves out of the red zone is important,’ said Commissioner Greg Felt. “We should all think back to early summer and what that felt like….and do the right thing now get our community on board.” He added, “if that doesn’t work, there might be tough decisions ahead.”
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