Are we there yet? Health official discusses endemic
120,266 cases, 1,617 deaths in county since March 2020
The first COVID-19 cases were detected in Montgomery County on March 7, 2020. Two years later, that number has grown significantly, with 120,266 cases and 1,617 deaths as of Friday, March 4, according to the Montgomery County COVID-19 Data HUB.
“So as we are emerging from the omicron surge, the natural question is ‘Is COVID endemic now? Are we in endemic phase?’ And the answer is we are transitioning toward endemic phase, but we’re not quite there yet,” said Christina Miller, administrator of the Montgomery County Office of Public Health in a presentation to county commissioners Thursday.
Sixty-three cases and three deaths were in a two-day period, from Tuesday to Wednesday, March 1-2, in Montgomery County, according to the county’s COVID-19 online resources database. Of those, five cases came from long term care facilities, and two others came from the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville.
Miller said 574 cases were recorded over a seven-day period for the week ending on Feb. 25.
“And for comparison purposes, about six weeks ago, we were seeing that number or more on a daily basis in terms of new cases,” she said.
Miller said in her presentation that Montgomery County had an incidence rate of 69.1 cases per 100,000 residents.
She added that “hospitalizations continue to decline.” As of Friday afternoon, there were 80 patients hospitalized in Montgomery County medical facilities, five of whom are on ventilators, according to the county’s online resources database.
“About six weeks, ago more than 600 individuals (were) hospitalized for COVID,” Miller said.
In Montgomery County, 530,843 residents have been fully inoculated, while 137,911 others have been partially vaccinated, according to figures from the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard. Another 245,977 people have received an additional dose since Aug. 13, 2021.
“Vaccination remains our primary and best mechanism for preventing severe COVID,” Miller
said. “At this time last year, we were at the very early stages of making vaccines available, and while we haven’t seen significant changes in these numbers over the past few weeks, we have seen substantial changes over the past year of course.”
Miller also encouraged those who are eligible and have not yet received their COVID-19 booster shot to do so.
New endemic phase
Miller spoke of a new endemic phase.
“Endemic doesn’t mean that a disease is going away,” she said. “It doesn’t mean that it’s harmless or that it’s mild. It actually means that it has a consistent presence in the population and there’s a usual prevalence or a consistent pattern within a geographic area.”
In terms of confronting the coronavirus, Miller stressed the importance of utilizing implemented strategies such as medicine, testing and vaccination.
“Two years into this pandemic we are at a turning point,” she said. “We have many more tools available to us now than we did two years ago.”
To that end, there have been 221,637 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine dispensed at the county’s five COVID-19 vaccine clinics, according to Miller, who added that 178,048 COVID-19 tests have been administered at county testing sites.
“As we go forward, this means shifting our approach away from preventing all illness or all transmission of the disease toward preventing severe disease and a strain on our hospitals,” she said.
Miller added that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently revised its “framework” as it relates to transmission and coronavirus’ presence in a given community.
She noted the guidelines focused on “transmission levels” by way of incidence and positivity rates.
“Those community transmission indicators don’t reflect the full scope of transmission because they don’t capture at-home tests, and they also can’t differentiate between mild and severe disease and they don’t reflect strain on the health care system,” Miller said. “The CDC’s new framework uses a combination of indicators to understand the spread and severity in a community.”
Specifically, it implants results from PCR and antigen tests as well as “COVID admissions” and the number of hospitalized patients, she said.
“I think this is an evidence based, data driven approach to a shift based on where we are now compared to where we were two years ago,” said Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairwoman Dr. Val Arkoosh.
In giving a play-by-play of the new graph, Miller relayed that the federal health categories include low, medium and high:
Arkoosh, who spearheaded the dissemination of information for Montgomery County throughout the pandemic, applauded Miller’s efforts in providing a comprehensive understanding of the situation here in Montgomery County.
“This represents a shift in philosophy with COVID-19 that rather than preventing transmission of disease, which has been the focus of the last two years,” Arkoosh said. “Now that we have vaccinations, and plenty of testing, and treatments available that didn’t exist previously, the focus will be on preventing severe disease, understanding that there will be some transmission in our communities that if people protect themselves with vaccinations and they take advantage of treatments that are available that should limit severe disease.”
“Endemic doesn’t mean that a disease is going away. It doesn’t mean that it’s harmless or that it’s mild. It actually means that it has a consistent presence in the population and there’s a usual prevalence or a consistent pattern within a geographic area.” — Christina Miller, administrator of the Montgomery County Office of Public Health