Though the novel coronavirus pandemic has been reported to be “over,” nationally, with relaxed restrictions and everyday life back to “normal,” the threat, and likelihood, according to officials, of contracting the virus remain relevant, as evidenced by regional and state statistics.
In efforts to combat COVID-19, and keep awareness high, Lake County General Health District staff continue to strongly encourage precautionary behaviors moving forward, regardless of the pandemic’s moribund status.
Staying alert and aware
“We saw our first big uptick in November 2020 due to multiple factors — colder weather/people being indoors, lack of available vaccination, and gatherings,” said Jessica Wakelee, an emergency preparedness and epidemiology manager. “Numbers in 2020 peaked just before Thanksgiving and then started downward with a smaller spike in late December/early January 2021 following the holidays. Cases decreased significantly after that through late spring, largely due to the increasing availability of vaccination by spring of 2021.”
Cases were low over the summer of 2021, but started to increase in July with the arrival of the Delta variant and continued to rise slowly but steadily throughout the fall, she added.
Moreover, the district reports, with the arrival of the Omicron variant in late November 2021, a “huge spike began that peaked in early/mid-January after Christmas and New Year gatherings.
With greater availability of at-home test kits since early 2022, the district noted that many cases since have gone unreported.
“We can assume, however, that with the more recent variants, again, colder weather and gatherings, there will be more cases,” Wakelee said. “As a result, we’ve been able to resume some of our regular preparedness activities like participating in exercises that had been on hold due to more active response.”
While the matter of vaccination has been and remains contentious, at best, Director of Nursing Dyan Denmeade noted that the number of children and adolescents receiving routine immunizations has increased to greater than pre-COVID numbers.
“Concerning the volume of vaccinations, the number of patients has increased compared to last year — our numbers, however, are significantly lower than when boosters were originally announced in 2021,” she said. “Our homebound interest has remained steady.”
On Nov. 9, Lake County jumped from 43rd in the state for COVID-19 incidence to 24th, but the two-week incidence didn’t change too dramatically (181.6 to 193.4 cases per 100,000), Wakelee added.
Remaining challenges/adjustments
“People have thought it’s over for a long time now, but we’re still seeing impacts,” she said. “There is also an ongoing challenge of trying to control COVID-19 and other respiratory illness outbreaks in congregate settings, such as long-term care facilities due to close quarters and the scaling back of preventive measures and so forth. This is something people should keep in mind as they visit loved ones in nursing homes.”
District Health Commissioner Ron Graham is also reminding people, simply, about hygiene, as there are more respiratory illnesses than COVID-19 that can be very harmful to young children and the elderly.
“This, as always, remains a current local public health challenge,” he said.
Chief Epidemiologist Muhammad Jafar echoed Graham.
“After a quiet couple of years during the pandemic, other respiratory viruses such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza have seen a major uptick this year,” Jafar explained. “Also, we have two new Omicron subvariants (BQ.1.1 and BQ.1) that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention forecasting, now account for the majority of cases in our region.”
The subvariants might be more transmissible, but are not expected to cause more severe disease, he noted.
“We’re taking our lessons learned and updating our plans to be better prepared the next time something like this happens,” Wakelee added. “We are also reassessing training needs for our workforce that has seen dramatic changes over the course of the pandemic.”
Graham said community partners across the board have facilitated keeping the people of Lake County safe, in a “post-COVID” environment.
“I hope we can regain trust amid misinformation and misperceptions,” Graham added. “While we didn’t mandate anything, no matter what, we’ve been one of the best in the state addressing this and getting critical information to the public.”
Monitoring COVID-19: Quick resources
Lake County’s COVID-19 surveillance report is issued on the first Friday of each month. The current iteration has a full-pandemic case trend on Page 1 and calendar year comparisons for some cases, hospitalizations and death count data.
The report also includes vaccination trend information visualized from the Ohio Department of Health’s vaccination dashboard.
The latest report, released Nov. 4, can be viewed by visiting www.lcghd.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/COVID-19-Stats-Brief-11-4-22-FINAL.pdf.
For Ohio case/trend data, visit the Ohio Department of Health’s COVID-19 Dashboard at /coronavirus.ohio.gov/dashboards.
In addition to an overview, the site features several topical dashboards with varying levels of state/county data.
“Since our more comprehensive reports are issued monthly, we have a page on our website with key data points that we update weekly based on CDC’s and ODH’s Thursday data updates on their respective websites,” (www.lcghd.org/2019-novel-coronavirus-ncov/covid-19-data/) Wakelee said. “Our monthly reports back to mid-2021 are also linked at the bottom of the page.”
