While the recent surge in the coronavirus pandemic has been concerning, Berrien County’s top health officials are voicing gratitude that the rise has been at a slower pace than in the past, and as more of the population gets vaccinated, there is hope on the horizon.
Berrien County Health Department Health Officer Nicki Britten and Spectrum Health Lakeland President Dr. Loren Hamel addressed the latest trends today in another healthcare update.
Britten addressed the situation first, saying, “We have made great vaccination coverage progress, not full to the point where our work is done but we’re making great progress, so the discussion about trends has in some ways become a little bit more nuanced as to what’s going on in Berrien County. We are continuing to see a little bit of an increase. Last week we had been somewhat flat that might have been attributable to spring break and just fewer people in town and getting tested. We are starting to see a little bit more growth in our cases.”
Currently, Britten says we’re running between 55 to 58 new cases per day on average over the last seven days. Nevertheless, she is encouraged, saying, “What I think is encouraging is our rates right now are double what we were a month ago. So it is taken us about a month to double our number of cases. However, back in October and November when we were experiencing that really significant surge, we were doubling our cases every 10 days. So while we don’t want our cases to double — we don’t want to continue seeing that exponential growth — the fact that it’s happening much more slowly now is a good sign.”
Britten says the slower pace helps everyone, suggesting, “When we have that slower growth, it does help us keep our hospital admissions and our healthcare system at a capacity where it’s manageable. So that slower growth is a good thing now, plus the fact that our local, Berrien County, situation is not the same as being experienced across the state. We have many regions in our state that are experiencing much more rapid growth with as many as four times as many case rates per population in those parts of the state. This could mean that maybe it’s coming our way and just hasn’t gotten here yet, or maybe it’s something that because we have a little bit less population density, we’ve been able to move through and as we get a larger proportion of our population vaccinated maybe we will continue to have some of that slow growth. It’s hard to know.”
Britten says another factor that’s just a little bit different right now is the virus variants. She says, “We know that there are more variant strains like the B-117 variant, also known as the UK variant, which is definitely the predominant strain in the state of Michigan right now, and we know it’s a little bit more infectious. It’s more easily spread between people, and perhaps that’s why we’re seeing some of these increases again. We’re really lucky that right now we are kind of at that breaking point and this is a warning for all of us to just make sure that we were being diligent in our protective measures. We all know that we need to get vaccinations, avoid close contact with other people, reduce exposure, use good hand hygiene, and stay home when you’re ill. Those all remain important things that we need to keep doing while we’re in this messy middle period of vaccinations and all that.”
Dr. Hamel addressed the current hospitalization rates, telling us, “Our inpatient trend has very closely, as you would expect, mirrored the outpatient COVID cases that Nicki has described. We’ve seen them increase. We’ve seen them increase at a slower rate than our previous surge and with a bit of a younger population. We’re running in the mid-40s in terms of in patient census. The proportion that are in the Intensive Care Unit is a little lower and it appears the mortality rate will be a little lower, but it’s still significant. The mortality rate across the country and the state of Michigan and at Lakeland is running near 2-percent. We think that’s going to be probably a little lower during this surge but it’s too early to tell because we’re early in the in the fourth surge experience, but It appears that it’s not growing quite as fast and folks seem to be doing a little better. It still is a very significant disease and we’re seeing younger people in the Intensive Care Unit, younger people on ventilators this round than we did in earlier surges, including 20-to- 30 year olds that are just very sick.”
Asked about Governor Whitmer’s suggestions regarding a two-week pause in in-person high school, Britten addressed the local situation on that front, saying, “Late last week following that recommendation by the governor for a two week voluntary suspension of in-person high school, we did reconvene. We have very regular meetings with school leadership here in Berrien County and go through data with the school leaders one to two times a week, just looking at trends both in the broader community as well as what’s going on in the schools. We are notified and work with the schools every time there are cases in the schools and are very aware of what is happening. We have spent the entire school year being really involved in what has been going on. So with all of these things taken together the health department did notify the schools that if they wish to continue with in person learning that that would be acceptable given the amount of transmission and what we’re seeing in our community, plus there are a lot of benefits to in-person learning.”
She further explained the rationale, saying, “So as we’re making this risk-benefit calculation, it’s always about COVID risk, but then also the benefits and potential harms of other things. So weighing that out with school leaders, it was decided that in-person learning can occur. There were some schools that had had plans in place for how they were going to proceed after spring break from an operational standpoint, and a lot of them stuck with those plans, but there was not that last-minute decision. We really are not seeing school settings as being the drivers of transmission amongst our youth and teens in our community. Teens and those under the age of 18 are making up a larger proportion of the cases than we have seen previously, but a lot of that is because we don’t have as many older adults that are cases. So just the slice of the pie that they take up is getting a little bit bigger. There are additional cases in real numbers as well, but we are not seeing increases in hospitalizations and severe outcomes of those age groups either.”
Essentially, they collectively figured that at this point in time, the benefits of in-person learning seem to outweigh what’s happening, plus vulnerable older adults are well covered with vaccination in Berrien County, so there’s a little bit less concern about transmission amongst youth potentially spilling over into that population.
On another note, Britten talked about the benefits derived from in-person school, suggesting, “We have also found schools do tend to be some of the safest places for our students to be in terms of COVID transmission risk. It is a fairly regulated environment where the schools have forced mask-wearing and social distancing and there’s hand hygiene protocols in place. There’s screening for excluding ill people that doesn’t always happen when students are on a virtual learning schedule. It might be congregating and informal groups to do study groups or to do online school together, or maybe they just have a little more free time where they might be driving around town together or participating in things. So having our students in a more regulated environment for several hours a day every day is probably better for our community.”
Following Spring Break, families who traveled out of state are being encouraged to be proactive about testing for COVID, with Britten telling folks, “If you are experiencing any COVID-like symptoms, go ahead and get a test. It’s good to know what’s going on or if you had a known exposure or found out you were exposed to somebody, we also recommend that you get tested. There are many places throughout Berrien County that will do testing. We’re recommending that if you were exposed to wait until five days after your exposure so that your body has had time to actually have the viral replication so it can be detected in the test. If we get tested too soon, it can show a false negative, and for people who were exposed in addition to seeking a test you do need to quarantine for 10 days if you have no symptoms and that 10 days starts from the time you were exposed to that individual. People who have tested positive regardless of whether or not you have symptoms do need to isolate for 10 days.”
Wrapping things up, Dr. Hamel reminds everyone, “This is one wicked disease. It is mutating around the world. It is becoming more contagious. There is evidence is becoming more lethal. We’re going to find some of those mutations are resistant to our vaccines and we’re going to be starting a new round with new vaccines yet to come if we don’t have enough herd immunity soon. I think there’s a lot of science behind that. I believe that you are going to have an antibody in your blood one way or the other. You are either going to get sick or you’re going to get vaccinated, but ultimately almost all of us will get exposed and I would just continue to remind you the vaccine is absolutely the safest way to put that antibody in your blood and to help protect you and those you love.”
Britten also suggests the vaccine, telling folks, “Life is precious and we want to save the lives of our friends and neighbors. We don’t know the untold lives that have been saved by the vaccine. It could have been my parents. It could have been your family members. It could have been you based on the actions that we’ve all taken already thus far and so I just encourage us to think about that and remember, yes it’s a little bit cumbersome. In the big scheme, this is a short period of time. I don’t want to minimize any of the difficulty that this last year has brought on all of us, but if we stay focused on the why some of that burden lessens and we can become more focused on how do we carry this burden together? How do we look at the finish line together and take the decisive action towards getting us there together?”
