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Latest Surge in COVID Cases in Lewis County Making
People Sicker and Infecting More Children Than Previous Surges Officials
Say
Published: September 23, 2021
at 12:00 p.m.
By: Nick Altmire
Lowville, NY- As the number of
active COVID-19 cases continues to climb in Lewis County, currently at 124,
a noticeable difference is starting to distinguish this current surge from
the previous spikes experienced locally.
We reached out
earlier this week to Lewis County Public Health for an interview to provide
some insight to the community on what differences they are noticing with
the current surge and address some of the questions we have been getting
from our readers, but they did not initially respond to our request and
later declined to speak with us for this story. They did tell us they would
likely be issuing a press release later in the week, addressing some of our
questions.
It appears that
some of the questions we submitted were addressed by Public Health Director
Ashley Waite, during an update to the Health and Human Services committee
of the Lewis County Board of Legislators on Tuesday.
“COVID has
certainly gotten bad here in Lewis County in the last three weeks,” Ms.
Waite told the committee.
So far during the
month of September, 21 Lewis County residents have required hospitalization
as a result of COVID, Ms. Waite reported, noting
that three pediatric cases recently required hospitalization.
“That is not
something we have seen before, so that is different,” Ms. Waite said,
referring to the pediatric hospitalizations.
In total, 231 new
cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the county so far during the month
of September.
The latest surge
seems to be spreading more with children than previous waves experienced
locally. Ms. Waite said there were 24 cases in schools last week and 18 so
far this week with data for just Monday and Tuesday.
“We’ve seen 6
cases of spread in school, again, which is something new, we didn’t see
that last year,” Ms. Waite told the committee, adding that 262 students
have needed to be placed in quarantine so far this school year.
“It is imperative
that students are wearing their masks while they are sitting at their
desks, three feet apart,” Ms. Waite said. “If both students have masks on,
we do not need to quarantine those students, so that is an important step
that schools need to take. We’re continuing to work with the schools on a daily basis trying to keep our children in
in-person learning because we know that is the best way.”
Ms. Waite told
the committee that the 35 new cases registered on Monday in the county is
comparable to the daily case numbers seen at the peak of the pandemic
locally, in December and January.
“There are no
particular outbreaks or clusters, it is fairly widespread across the entire
county as far as we can see,” she added.
Another
difference that stands out from previous waves is that this variant seems
to make people sicker.
“With this
variant, people are much sicker than they were before,” Lewis County
Manager Ryan Piche told the committee, noting that there were a lot of
asymptomatic cases before. “With this round, if you are positive (for
COVID) you are most likely sick.”
Ms. Waite
reported to the committee that Public Health is seeing an increase in
individuals seeking the vaccine, noting that 57 percent of the eligible
population has received at least one dose of the vaccine. According to the
latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 52.4
percent of the eligible population in the county are fully vaccinated.
We’ve continued
to request data on what Public Health is seeing in terms of an individual’s
vaccination status relating to the case count and hospitalizations, but
we’re told that information is still being compiled.
Video from Ms.
Waite’s report to the committee can be seen here.
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