The Jefferson County Health Department announced today (Oct. 7) the county has been moved back into the orange level on the agency’s four-color COVID-19 warning system.
For the previous two weeks, the county had been in the red level, which is the highest level and indicates widespread, uncontrolled community transmission of the virus.
The orange level is the second highest level and indicates widespread but controlled transmission of COVID-19.
The main indicator used to determine the color level is the seven-day rolling average of cases per day per 100,000 residents.
The Health Department reported the county was moved to the orange level based on the number of cases reported from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3, when the rolling average was 22.80 cases per 100,00 residents per day.
When the county, which has a population of about 225,000 people, has a rolling average of 25 or more cases per 100,000 residents per day, it is moved to the red level, which calls for more mitigation to curb the spread of the virus.
The county was in the red level from Aug. 30 to Sept. 5 and again from Sept. 13 to Sept. 26.
The orange level indicates the county is seeing 10 to 24 cases per 100,000 people per day.
According to the Health Department, the seven-day rolling average per 100,000 people per day for the week of Sept. 20-26 was 27.87. The week before that the average was 31.49 per 10,000 people per day.
Health Department staff members have reported that once a week, usually on Tuesday, they review the rolling average number of cases from the previous Sunday through Saturday to see if the county should be moved to a different color on the warning system.
County COVID-19 stats
The Health Department announced another COVID-19-related death today – a man in his 80s from a long-term care facility.
That brings the total number of deaths in the county to 66 deaths since the pandemic began.
Of the 66 deaths, 48 have been at long-term care facilities.
The Health Department also reported 58 new COVID-19 cases today, including 12 at long-term care facilities.
That brings the total number of cases in the county to 4,962 since the first ones were reported in March.
Those cases are through midnight Tuesday (Oct. 6).
The Health Department reported 3,885 patients have been released from isolation, which means the patients recovered enough to be released from case management.
Of the county’s total coronavirus cases, 622 have been at long-term care facilities, which includes residents and staff members who live in Jefferson County.
The county has had at least 19 COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care facilities, according to the Health Department.
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) defines an outbreak as one or more residents testing positive for the virus or one or more staff members who have worked within a facility in the 14 days before testing positive.
Brianne Zwiener, the Health Department’s communications specialist, said since Monday (Oct. 5) the Health Department has not posted its usual COVID-19 data graphics to social media, and instead all data is being posted to the agency’s website and COVID-19 dashboard.
Zwiener said the Health Department is working to redesign the dashboard to include more data.
She also said the change will allow the Health Department to have one place for all data and will save staff members some time. The data can be found at jeffcohealth.org/covid19-data.
Mitigation steps
Health Department Director Kelley Vollmar said she is working on a plan for a new messaging campaign to help curb the spread of COVID-19.
Vollmar met Tuesday with county officials, state reps, school district leaders and others to get advice about developing a plan to mitigate the virus, and the group recommended against a mask mandate or limiting the size of gatherings.
Instead the consensus among the group members was to try to better spread the message about the importance of taking preventive steps to limit the spread of the virus, including avoiding crowds, social distancing, wearing masks and hand-washing.
Vollmar said she will draw up a plan for a new messaging campaign and present it to the agency’s Board of Trustees for possible adoption.
The Health Department’s Board of Trustees voted 3-2 Sept. 24 to hold a special board meeting to discuss COVID-19 prevention measures. However, no date was set, and as of today, the meeting had still not been scheduled, said Brianne Zwiener, Health Department communications specialist
Board members said the public would be given at least a week’s notice of the special meeting and said it would be held in a venue that will allow members of the public to attend.
Vollmar said the special meeting would just be informative, and no votes would be taken. She said the meeting would have a public comment section.
“What we're going to be looking for from that public comment is ideas from the community. After we've been able to pull together this information and present it to the community, we were looking for ideas from community members for mitigation,” Vollmar said.
The board passed a mandatory mask ordinance on Aug. 28, but less than 24 hours later, before the order went into effect, it revoked the ordinance at an emergency meeting after questions were raised about whether the board followed proper meeting procedures.
State, U.S. stats
Missouri had 135,651 positive cases of the coronavirus and 2,236 deaths related to the disease, the DHSS reported today.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the U.S. had 7,475,262 cases, and a total of 210,232 coronavirus-related deaths, as today.
Anyone who shows coronavirus symptoms or who has questions should call the Missouri State Hotline at 877-435-8411 or the Mercy Clinical Support Line at 314-251-0500. For more information about COVID-19, visit jeffcohealth.org/coronavirus-covid19.
