Routt County’s COVID-19 incidence rate is increasing exponentially and is now among the top three in Colorado, just behind Moffat and Kit Carson counties.
Most cases are among the unvaccinated, including children who are not yet eligible for the vaccine. The incidence rate of cases in school-age children between the ages of 5 and 18 is about twice the rate of the rest of the county’s population.
“The incidence of our case is increasing exponentially; our positivity is increasing exponentially, “said Routt County epidemiologist Nicole Harty.” Since the end of July, the number of cases has doubled about every 20 days. “
In the last seven days, there have been 136 new COVID-19 infections in Routt County, an increase of 40 cases over the previous seven days. The incidence rate is more than a case count, as it takes into account the population of the county. It is calculated by comparing the number of cases with the total population.
The chief medical officer of Routt County, Dr. Brian Harrington said the county recently died of the virus, a 70-year-old unvaccinated man.
However, public health officials on Tuesday told commissioners they could not examine case counts in the same way they did during the rises because of the county’s vaccination rate. Commissioners were not amused by adding a new public health order at the local level, and public health director Roberta Smith said she would not anticipate an order unless local hospital capacity is endangered.
School-age cases have risen sharply since school began in late August, but schools are playing a different role in the county’s most recent rise than they had in cases last spring.
“Last year, the general story about disease transmission between schools and the wider community was that adults exposed children outside of school and then those children potentially exposed other children in school settings,” he said. dir Harty. “So far this year, the story seems to be that children are being exposed in school settings, often sports, and then exposing their family and other community members.”
Harty said the incidence rate among children was about 1,400 cases per 100,000 people, meaning approximately 1.4% of all children in the county currently have COVID-19.
Nicole Harty / Graphic courtesy
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment recommended that all schools and districts at the state institute mask all students by the end of last week, but they failed to fulfill a mandate. On Monday, Routt County commissioners criticized state health officials for the move, saying it showed a “lack of spine.”
That announcement also restricted guidelines that had allowed counties with high vaccination rates to have looser quarantine protocols in school, an advantage for which Routt County had previously been eligible.
“Our goal is to keep the kids in school,” Smith said. “Now, schools and people need to step up if they want to help with that goal.”
To return to looser quarantine guidelines, the percentage of vaccinated staff and students eligible for the vaccine must exceed 80 percent, Smith said. He said public health has offered to get this data for districts to determine school vaccination rates, but only the Steamboat Springs School District has requested it so far.
Smith said he did not believe any district had reached that threshold.
If this level of vaccination is achieved, students and staff should not be quarantined due to typical classroom exposure. Without this higher level of vaccination, quarantines depend on the situation.
If both the case and the positive COVID-19 contact are masked, the contact does not need to be quarantined. If a close contact is completely vaccinated, they do not need to be quarantined regardless of masking. Quarantine can also be limited if at least 70% of the school participates in frequent testing for the virus.
Some who test positive for COVID-19 will need to be isolated for at least 10 days and a negative test cannot remove them soon, local health officials reiterated.
The most positive exposure of the cases has been found among known contacts, either at home or in school-related settings, Harty said. The vast majority of cases among school-age children are related to a school activity. Most recent cases have been from South Routt, which has the lowest vaccination rate in the county.
Routt County Public Health is currently working to get some new contact tracers to help track close contacts of positive cases, but Harty said there are so many cases that it can be difficult to keep up.
“I would say there’s a certain amount of increase related to the way we can’t reach everyone as fast as we’d like now,” Harty said.
The local positivity rate is as high as ever, at almost 12%, according to data shared on Tuesday. Harty said this is a clue he should do more testing.
The chief medical doctor of Routt County, Dr. Brian Harrington said none of the people who have recently ended up at UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center have been vaccinated. Local hospital capacity is not in danger of being exceeded at this time, but Harrington said there are cases where it is difficult to transfer a patient to another hospital due to stress in the capacity of the state in general.
Because of the delta variant, people who are not vaccinated have a higher risk of getting the virus now than ever before, Harrington said. One thing local medical professionals have never seen is that someone seeks hospitalization because of vaccination.
“We don’t see people coming into our clinics or our emergency room because of some problem with the vaccine. No one has died because of the vaccine. We haven’t hospitalized anyone for the vaccine,” Harrington said. “The equation is crystal clear: the vaccine is protective. That’s why today we have a different risk conversation than we did a year ago. “
To reach Dylan Anderson, call 970-871-4247 or email [email protected].