While the last few weeks of COVID briefings have shown a lot of optimism with a sharp drop in cases and positivity rates since a major spike in November and December, local health officials are asking people to be cautious as cases have taken a slight rise in the past week.
Kosciusko County Health Officer Dr. Bill Remington, along with Communicable Disease Expert Teresa Reed and Bowen Center President and CEO Kurt Carlson all attended the bi-weekly COVID briefing on Wednesday in person, while Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer and Kosciusko County Commissioner Cary Groninger attended virtually.
Teresa Reed started the briefing noting the small uptick in cases. “As we head into and out of the spring break season, I want everyone to do the same thing (we did during the holiday season), if your sick, get tested and stay home. If you don’t go anywhere and still get sick, stay home. If you think it’s allergies and you aren’t sure, stay home.”
Reed recently noted that she urges those who believe they may be suffering from allergies, but are not sure to get a test done before heading back out to work.
Dr. Remington went over some of the year-over-year numbers, then into comparisons of where the county stood two weeks ago with cases (2% positivity rate, 20 cases per 100,000 residents) to the numbers this week (3.8% positivity rate, 117 cases per 100,000 residents). “A little bit of a surprise this week, we slipped a little back from blue to yellow… a little less favorable. A little bump up, but nowhere near November.”
Remington talked about some regional surges, most notably one that has been happening in Michigan. “The mixing pot is stirring up a little harder than recently.” He went on to talk about how he doesn’t believe this will be near the spike in November. “Using the example of a forest fire, I cannot imagine there is enough tinder on the forest floor anymore to allow that to happen.”
Remington said it’s not time to let the guard down and to go past the semantics with the mask mandate changing on April 6th to a mask advisory throughout the state. “I ask you to go past those semantics, and to just keep (wearing masks) for a little while longer… if we could have another six to eight weeks, I think we’ll understand where this epicurve will be going with these new variants. (Another six to eight weeks) won’t be crushing for us as individuals to do it. We’ve been doing it for a year.”
Both Reed and Dr. Remington continued to encourage masks indoors, but to also take advantage of the outdoors. They also continued their encouragement of receiving the COVID vaccine. Remington says don’t be worried about any of the vaccines that are currently available, “Take any of them (Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson)… I would and I’ve been immersed in literature with these vaccines. I would take any of them offered to me. It is an amazing modern take on a pandemic. Take advantage of it, please.”
Mayor Joe Thallemer added in that he believes we are heading in the right direction and “just trying to avoid another spike.”
If you would like to get yourself scheduled for a vaccine, visit the IDPH Vaccine website or you can call 2-1-1. Locally, you can call the local hotline run by the Bowen Center at 574-347-4256, which is open Monday through Friday from 10 AM to 7 PM. The Bowen Center hotline is bilingual in both English and Spanish.
