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A reprieve after a devastating outbreak of the coronavirus in the Upper Midwest has brought cautious relief to health officials, though they fear infections remain rampant and holiday gatherings could reignite the worst outbreaks in the pandemic
SIOUX FALLS, SD – As much of the country experiences rising virus rates, a reprieve after a devastating coronavirus outbreak in the Upper Midwest has brought cautious relief to health officials, though they fear that infections remain endemic and that holiday gatherings could reignite the worst outbreaks of the pandemic.
States in the northern reaches of the Midwest and Great Plains saw the nation’s worst rates of coronavirus infections in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, stretching hospitals beyond capacity and leading to states such as North Dakota, with South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin reporting some of the nation’s highest per capita deaths in November.
But over the past two weeks, those states have seen their average daily cases drop, with drops ranging from 20% in Iowa to 66% in North Dakota, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins. Since mid-November, the whole region has returned to levels similar to those seen in October.
“We’re in a place where we have the fire under control, but it would be very easy for him to wake up if the conditions were right,” said Ryan Demmer, epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.
For a region that was a harbinger of waves of viruses now plaguing much of the country, the positive direction in the Midwest offers hope that people can rally to take viral precautions seriously while awaiting the vaccines during what experts believe are the final months of the pandemic.
Governors have used the falling numbers to justify their divergent approaches to tackling the pandemic, and even jousting at times. In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, defended maintaining certain restrictions until early January, saying the bar and restaurant limits worked. In neighboring South Dakota, Republican governess Kristi Noem has argued otherwise, using the recent drop in membership in her state to argue that masked mandates make no difference.
But some epidemiologists believe that the most compelling factor for many who have stepped up efforts to prevent infections may be that they have experienced the virus on a personal level. As the pandemic spread through communities in the Midwest, more people have seen relatives, friends or acquaintances fall ill or die.
“This is foxhole religion – it all gets a lot more real when the guy next to you gets shot,” said Dr. Christine Petersen, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of London. ‘Iowa. “Suddenly your local hospital is full and your sister, aunt or grandmother is in the hospital.”
According to data from the COVID Tracking Project, about one in 278 people in the northern states of Wisconsin to Montana required hospital care for COVID-19. In tight-knit communities, these experiences are striking.
The virus outbreak was so widespread in early November that almost everyone has known someone severely affected by COVID-19, said Dr. James Lawler of the Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
“It seems to bring things home in a way that just talking about it earlier didn’t,” he said, noting that he has seen more people wearing masks. facial expressions, as well as avoiding gatherings, parties and dining indoors.
Until the fall, the Upper Midwest had not experienced the widespread outbreaks and high death rates that other parts of the country experienced in the early months of the pandemic. Many have taken lax approaches to virus mitigation measures. Republican governors in the region have avoided government mandates for wearing masks or other efforts to prevent infections.
Many health experts have warned the area is ripe for widespread infections, especially as the weather gets colder and people congregate inside, facilitating the spread of the coronavirus.
“Once the snowball started it knocked everyone down,” said Petersen. “We knew it was going to happen. It was the ones who took the precautions and doubled down that did a little better, but we knew it was going to be tough no matter what.
Petersen attributed the renewed efforts to slow infections to a combination of factors: warnings from health officials and medical staff that hospitals were filling up; some Republican governors ordering the wearing of masks; and the lived experience of the pandemic. Other experts say some pockets of people, such as those working in meat packing plants where infections were widespread, had experienced infection rates so high that the virus slowed down.
But across the region, many feared that the success in avoiding a Thanksgiving peak could be nullified by Christmas and New Year’s celebrations. Petersen worried that people had decided to forgo Thanksgiving gatherings, only to have Christmas celebrations. family at Christmas. As a Midwestern, she recognized that it was hard to resist the raffle to reunite with family on vacation.
“I hope a lot of us don’t feel guilty in a few weeks,” she said.
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Funk reported from Norfolk, Nebraska. Steve Karnowski of Minneapolis contributed to this report.
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