CDC Week 11: ORANGE Status, 12.32 7-day rolling average of cases per day, 5.85% positivity rate
CDC Week 11 Epidemiological Analysis: (from JCHD Epidemiologist, Sara Wilton)
The first thing you may notice is that our weekly case count has increased enough to put us back in “orange” status. We are not alone; The CDC update call this week reported that cases across the US have increased around 2% over the course of the last 7 days. This has become a bit worrisome as it is basically a race against the clock to get vaccine in arms as the variants continues to spread. Our percent positivity has increased enough that it is classified as “yellow” instead of the previously reported “light green” as well.
A couple thoughts after looking at our trends- It is suspected that the B.1.1.7 variant represents about 40% of the cases in the US and will likely become the dominant variant in the next few weeks. Although Missouri is only reporting 5 cases of B.1.1.7, there are likely many more cases circulating undetected because of the lack of genomic sequencing. Now seems to be that crucial time where it is important to maintain our current restrictions instead of relaxing them as many states have done. Keeping the mask mandate in place for a bit longer and promoting any other prevention measures will hopefully help to prevent another surge while we are racing to vaccinate the community.
Genomic surveillance is still limited, but the CDC has reported some alarming data trends in areas where there are high numbers of confirmed cases of B.1.1.7. Cases and hospitalizations have been either plateauing or on the rise in these areas, all while the rest of the country had been experiencing a decline in cases and hospitalizations. Based on the previous two weeks’ data and trends of increasing weekly case counts for our county, I would support the recommendation that we extend the mask mandate another month to avoid any other significant increases in cases or hospitalizations. According to the latest Show Me Vax data, we have almost 44% of our 65 and older population at least partially vaccinated and about 20% fully vaccinated. Continuing to focus on vaccinating this high-risk group will also certainly help prevent those hospitalizations and covid related deaths.
Additional note regarding change in color status for Week 10: JCHD began exclusively using the State EpiTrax data system beginning on March 15th. Cases occurring over the weekend may not be stable in the EpiTrax data system until late Monday or early Tuesday which is a change from our previous receipt of data using our internal reports. The weekly case counts are now determined based on the lab collection date instead of the date that the case was reported to the agency. This switch happened the same time that we started exclusively using the EpiTrax data export for our reports. We know there are often delays with results coming back from the labs, so by using the lab collection date, our counts would more accurately reflect when infections were occurring in the community. We realized that the samples collected later in the week were susceptible to weekend delays and were not being added to EpiTrax until Monday evenings or Tuesday mornings. We received around 23 additional cases for the week of 3/7- 3/13 after the reports had already been created and distributed.
CDC Week 11 Case Updates: (as of 3/23/2021)
Total Cases: 21,780, Active Cases: 279
Total Deaths: 231
Jefferson County reports two additional COVID-19 deaths this week; male 80’s, male 90’s
CDC Week 11 Epi Reports:
CDC Week 11 Vaccine Report:
Vaccine Updates:
JCHD has provided 7,347 doses total
5,939 first doses (Moderna and Janssen)
1,408 second doses (Moderna)
JCHD will provide an additional 800 Moderna vaccines this week
Several clinics are scheduled in April at the new Vaccine Clinic site in Festus
16,391, or 7.28%, of Jeffco residents have been fully vaccinated