The Jefferson County Health Department reported 122 new COVID-19 cases over the past two days, including 28 cases on Tuesday (Oct. 13) and 94 cases today (Oct. 14).
That brings the total number of cases in the county to 5,339 since the first ones were reported in March.
Those cases are through midnight Tuesday.
The county also has had a total of 66 COVID-19-related deaths since the pandemic began, the Health Department reported.
Of the 5,339 cases in the county, 4,922 are lab confirmed and 417 cases are probable. A case is considered probable when a person has been exposed to a positive case and is exhibiting symptoms, according to the Health Department.
Of the county’s total coronavirus cases, 644 have been at long-term care facilities, which includes residents and staff members who live in Jefferson County.
Of the 66 COVID-19 deaths, 48 have been at long-term care facilities.
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.
County still at orange level
The county remains at the orange level on the Health Department’s four-color COVID-19 warning systems for a second week. 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 rolling average number of cases in the county from Oct. 4 to Oct. 10 was 19.81 cases per 100,000 residents per day. A decrease from the previous week (from Sept. 27 to Oct. 3), when the county had a rolling average of 22.80 cases per 100,000 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 highest level on the system – the red level, which calls for more mitigation to curb the spread of the virus.
The Health Department announced Oct. 7 the county has been moved back to the orange level after two weeks at the red level, which is the highest level and indicates widespread, uncontrolled community transmission of the virus.
The orange level indicates the county is seeing 10 to 24 cases per 100,000 people per day.
Health Department staff members have reported that once a week 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.
Special meeting
The Health Department Board of Trustees has scheduled a special meeting to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic for 6 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 15), when Health Department Director Kelley Vollmar is expected to go over feedback from her recent meeting with community members about how curb the spread of the virus.
The meeting will be held at the Hillsboro Community Civic Club to allow more members of the public to attend. However, the meeting will be limited to 75 people, the Health Department reported.
Those who attend must wear a solid cloth face mask that covers their mouth and nose.
Public comments will be allowed at the meeting, but each person will be limited to five minutes per comment, unless a large number of people want to comment, and then the time may be limited to 3 minutes for each speaker, according to the Health Department.
The meeting will be livestreamed, and people who can’t attend the meeting in person may attend via the Zoom videoconference app.
Vollmar met Oct. 6 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 communicate 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.
After the meeting, Vollmar said she would draw up a plan for a new messaging campaign and present it to the agency’s Board of Trustees.
The board is scheduled to hold its next regular meeting at 3 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 22) at the Health Department’s Hillsboro office. However, that meeting is for regular business and no discussion of COVID-19 is expected.
COVID-19 testing
Free COVID-19 testing will be offered from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday (Oct. 22) at the Hillsboro Community Civic Club, 10349 Business 21.
Vollmar said the testing event is open to any Missouri resident.
“The testing event is part of our ongoing collaboration with the state to ensure adequate testing capacity within each county,” she said. “The state is utilizing the National Guard for staffing and is coordinating the events on a monthly basis.”
The last free testing event was Sept. 22-23 in House Springs.
Brianne Zwiener, the Health Department’s communications specialist, said 234 people were tested during that event, and only 12 tests were positive.
Of the 234 who were tested, 212 were Jefferson County residents, and 10 of the 12 positive tests were for Jefferson County residents.
Vollmar said the next event will be in Hillsboro to provide more access to testing.
“We want to ensure that all residents have easy access to the sites,” she said. “We plan to move the sites around throughout the county as additional dates are set.”
State, U.S. stats
Missouri has had 144,230 positive cases of the coronavirus and 2,422 deaths related to the disease, the DHSS reported today.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the U.S. has had 7,835,007 cases, and a total of 215,194 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.
