Blaine County sees jump in COVID-19 cases

After a few months of relative quiet, the Blaine County Health Department was notified of 26 new COVID-19 cases in the last three days, a significant jump from the eight they saw between Oct. 24 and Oct. 28.

A release from the department this morning shows the region is continuing to see COVID-19 activity, along with influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, cases as well.

“Please be vigilant, COVID is not over,” the release says. “Please wash your hands, cover your cough and sneezes, stay away from sick people, stay home when you’re sick. All of these mitigation efforts will help control the spread of illness. Above all else, please be kind.”

The release also says their next COVID-19 vaccine clinic is Thursday at the Blaine County Fairgrounds Commercial Building. Masks and insurance cards are required.

In a meeting of the Hill County Health Board earlier this month, Hill County Health Department Disease Intervention Specialist Brandy Williams said cases here are staying fewer than 50 a week, usually hovering somewhere in the mid-30s, but the number is probably much higher than that because a lot of people who test positive don’t report it.

Williams and Hill County Public Health Director Kim Berg said they want to have the most accurate data possible, so they want to increase response and reporting rates.

Berg said they need more widespread testing if they want to improve these issues.

The Hill County Public Health Department was not available to provide the last two weeks of data this morning, but the state’s COVID website says the county saw 14 new cases last week. The data on the website often lags behind the county’s.

According to the website, Liberty County only saw two newly reported cases last week and Chouteau County only saw four, and Hill, Blaine, Liberty and Chouteau counties are all still listed at low levels of community transmission.

Blaine County’s jump in cases comes after a few months of relative quiet for the region and the U.S. in terms of COVID-19.

While counties in the area have seen fluctuations in the amount of cases being reported by local health departments, it has been some time since the last death.

The last time the area saw a COVID-19-related death was back in June in Blaine County, and before that the last death was late March, also in Blaine County.

Blaine, Hill, Liberty and Chouteau counties had all seen deaths throughout the end of last year and early this year during the omicron-variant-driven surge which broke previous records, but cases began to plummet nationwide and by February and deaths had nearly stopped.

The U.S. saw a significant rise in new cases through May, which more or less leveled off until the end of July.

Since then, the weekly total of new cases in the U.S. has dropped every week, with only a very slight rise between the seven-day period ending of Oct. 19 and the period ending Oct. 26.

This nationwide drop in cases comes with the increasing prevalence of the omicron-variant of the virus that causes COVID-19, a variant the was far more virulent in its spread than the strains of the virus found to that point.

However the surge, while dramatic and destructive seemed to burn itself out relatively quickly, and data indicates that the new strain was far less likely to result in serious illness or death than its predecessors.

The variant still is causing deaths and hospitalizations, just at a lower rate than previous variants.

The weekly totals of new deaths plummeted nationwide in March, and June through August saw a slow rise. The number of weekly deaths nationwide has also slowly dropped since then.

However, health officials at the federal, state and local levels often point out that while case and death numbers have gone down, so has testing.

Since May the number of nucleic acid amplification tests, one of the primary testing method, performed throughout the country has steadily dropped from 6 million a week in mid-May to 2.3 million in late October.