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Routt County’s COVID-19 incidence rate is increasing exponentially and is now in the top three in Colorado behind only Moffat and Kit Carson counties.
Most of the cases are among the unvaccinated, including children who are not yet eligible to receive the vaccine. The case incidence rate for school-aged children, those aged 5 to 18, is about double the rate for the rest of the county’s population.
“Our incidence of cases is increasing exponentially; our positivity is increasing exponentially, ”said Routt County epidemiologist Nicole Harty. “Since the end of July, our number of cases has doubled about every 20 days.”
In the past seven days, there have been 136 new COVID-19 infections in Routt County, an increase of 40 cases from the previous seven days. The incidence rate is more than just the number of cases as it takes into consideration the population of the county. It is calculated by comparing the number of cases to the total population.
Routt County Chief Medical Officer Dr Brian Harrington said the county recently had its 22nd death from the virus – an unvaccinated man in his 60s.
Still, public health officials told commissioners on Tuesday they couldn’t look at the number of cases the same way they did during peaks due to the county’s vaccination rate. The commissioners did not consider adding a new order of public health locally, and the director of public health, Roberta Smith, said she would not anticipate an order unless the capacity of the local hospital. is threatened.
Cases have risen sharply among school-aged children since starting school in late August, but schools are playing a different role in the county’s last peak than they did in the cases last spring.
“Last school year, the general story of disease transmission between schools and the wider community was that adults exposed children outside of school, and then those children potentially exposed other children by school environment, ”Harty said. “So far this year, the story seems to be that children are exhibited in school settings, often sporting, and then expose their families and other members of the community.”
Harty said the incidence rate in children was around 1,400 cases per 100,000 people, which means about 1.4% of all children in the county currently have COVID-19.
Nicole Harty / Courtesy Graphic
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment recommended that all schools and districts in the state institute mask all students late last week, but did not get a warrant . Routt County Commissioners on Monday criticized state health officials for the move, saying it showed a “lack of backbone.”
The announcement also slashed guidelines that had allowed counties with high vaccination rates to have more flexible quarantine protocols at school, a benefit Routt County had previously been eligible for.
“Our goal is to keep the kids in school,” Smith said. “Now schools and individuals have to sort of step up if they are to help achieve this goal.”
To revert to more lax quarantine guidelines, the percentage of vaccine-eligible staff and students who are vaccinated must exceed 80%, Smith said. She said public health had offered to extract this data for districts to determine vaccination rates in schools, but only the Steamboat Springs School District has requested it so far.
Smith said she doesn’t believe a district has reached that threshold.
If this level of immunization was reached, students and staff would not need to self-quarantine due to typical classroom exposure. Without this higher level of vaccination, quarantines depend on the situation.
If both the positive COVID-19 case and the contact are masked, the contact does not need to be quarantined. If a close contact is fully vaccinated, they do not need to self-quarantine, regardless of the masking. Quarantine can also be limited if at least 70% of the school participates in frequent testing for the virus.
A person who tests positive for COVID-19 must self-isolate for at least 10 days, and a negative test cannot get them out early, local health officials reiterated.
The most positive exposure of cases has been among known contacts, at home or in school settings, Harty said. A large majority of cases in school-aged children are related to school activity. The largest share of recent cases are from South Routt, which has the lowest vaccination rate in the county.
Routt County Public Health is currently working on boarding new contact tracers to help track close contacts of positive cases, but Harty said there were so many cases that it could be difficult to follow. rhythm.
“I would say there is some increase related to the fact that we are not able to reach everyone as quickly as we would like right now,” Harty said.
The local positivity rate is higher than it has ever been at nearly 12%, according to data shared on Tuesday. Harty said this indicates more people should get tested.
Routt County Chief Medical Officer Dr Brian Harrington said none of the people who ended up at UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center had recently been vaccinated. Local hospital capacity is not likely to be exceeded at this point, but Harrington said there are cases where it is difficult to transfer a patient to another hospital due to pressure on state capacity. in general.
Because of the delta variant, unvaccinated people are at greater risk of contracting the virus now than they have ever been, Harrington said. One thing he said local health professionals have never seen is someone seeking hospitalization because of the vaccination.
“We don’t see people entering our clinics or our (emergency room) because of a problem with the vaccine. No one died from the vaccine. We haven’t hospitalized anyone because of the vaccine, ”said Harrington. “The equation is clear: the vaccine is protective. This is why we are facing a different risk conversation today than we would have been a year ago. “
To reach Dylan Anderson, call 970-871-4247 or email [email protected].
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