Hill County Health Department releases restriction plan for review

Hill County Public Health Director and Health Officer Kim Larson announced during the Hill County Health Board’s weekly COVID-19 update Friday that the draft of a health officer order to increase COVID-19 restrictions if the county rate doesn’t drop will be put out for public review today.

The order would limit the amount of people permitted at social gatherings to 25 regardless of the ability to social distance and would restrict restaurants, bars, casinos and similar establishments to 50 percent capacity for one month.

Larson has previously said this order will take effect if the average number of new cases of COVID-19 in Hill County exceeds 50 per day per 100,000 residents during this week. That translates to 58 cases a week for Hill County.

Larson has said that this number has previously been more than double that in Hill County since cases began getting out of control at the beginning of October.

Larson said as of last Thursday afternoon the county had of 670 cases with 264 active and 18 deaths so far.

Those numbers have surged again, with the county now at 740 cases, 283 active with 14 hospitalized and 22 deaths as of Sunday night’s update.

Hill County had its highest number of new cases in one day reported last Monday, with 42 new cases.

The state set a new record for new cases in the numbers released Friday morning, with 932 new cases.

Hill County Commissioner Mike Wendland asked Larson if the department could identify hotspots of infection and she said if a social gathering becomes a cluster they will inform the public, but generally speaking it’s better if everyone assumes that infection can happen anywhere.

“In our community, you should be acting as if you are being exposed to it if you’re going out so you should be utilizing all of the public health efforts we’ve been talking about,” she said, “Wearing a face covering, social distance, don’t to large gathering, stay home if you’re sick.”

Board Member Erica McKeon-Hanson suggested that members of the public limit the size of their social circle in order to keep transmission as low as possible.

“We definitely need the community’s help here,” she said.

Larson said a nurse is working with the Hill County Detention Center to take care of a positive case they found among the inmates and that the center is handling it well, but there is always a risk of spread in facilities like it.

“There’s always a concern when it gets into a setting such as that of an outbreak happening,” she said, “but they’re working well with us.”

Larson also provided an update on Northern Montana Health Care’s capacity. She said, as of last Thursday afternoon, the number of in-patient hospital beds occupied is at 73 percent, and that number keeps going up as the county sees more and more hospitalizations.

She said her department is keeping in touch with the hospital on a daily basis.

She said the surge is keeping the health department very busy.

“My health department and our contact tracers are following 449 people who are quarantined, and that does not include the people being followed by Rocky Boy Public Health,” she said.

The Rocky Boy Health Center recently put out a statement on their Facebook page saying that they were not able to contact all close contacts on a daily basis because of how many cases there have been on the reservation.

Larson said the Hill County Health Department is unable to assist because it’s getting to the point that they are in a similar situation.

She said, due to the number of calls the department is getting on a daily basis, it’s still better to wait for the department to get in touch with close contacts instead of calling them.

She said the department is getting an increased amount of calls, but so far things have been manageable, having set up a designated line for people who are quarantined.

Larson said, despite contact tracing efforts proceeding, the department is having trouble with people refusing to pick up the phone or hanging up on the department even if they need to be quarantined due to being a close contact of a positive case of COVID-19.

She said in those cases people would be served an order of isolation or quarantine by law enforcement.

“I would really like to stress that people in isolation and quarantine need to follow the orders,” she said. “If you have been tested, you need to stay home until you get the results.”

Wendland said many people ignore numbers they don’t recognize even more than normal during campaign season and the county is having similar issues.

Larson said the health department will always leave a voicemail for people who miss the call.

She said if someone is called about being a close contact they should get tested because if they are positive themselves the department needs to find their own contacts to potentially stop and outbreak or otherwise slow the spread of the virus.

Larson said plenty of people have refused to get a test despite this.

Bullhook Community Health Center CEO Kyndra Hall said she is working with the health department to begin helping them with asymptomatic contact tracing.

The next COVID-19 update call will be Friday at 1 p.m.