Sign of progress?
COVid-19 cases trending downward, local health officials say
Recent COVID-19 cases appear to be trending downward in Yuma County as this week’s daily case count, so far, has consistently stayed below 100.
On Saturday, the county entered the month of August with 188 new cases of COVID-19. Sunday and Monday’s cases accounted for less than half of that number, with new cases totaling 64 and 62, respectively. Then on Tuesday, the county reported a total of 12 new cases, while Wednesday’s count inched into the 90s and Thursday’s returned to the 60s.
According to Yuma County Public Health Services District Director Diana Gomez, this could be attributed to a number of factors.
“In Yuma County, we are doing really well as far as sustainable testing (goes),” she said. “It could be a combination of factors where you saw the numbers decrease – it could have been a delay in reporting, they could have been tests that were from a few days before that.”
As some testing centers are reportedly clearing their backlogs, Gomez said the county should see “a more accurate reflection” of its COVID-19 landscape moving forward.
“Before, it was taking anywhere from five and in some cases 10 days to get your results back,” she said. “Now, antibody testing results are being reported in under 24 hours. (With) the active testing – which is the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) testing – you’re getting results hopefully, moving forward, in two to three days. Which is a dramatic decrease. Moving forward, we will be having a more accurate reflection of those numbers...and more real-time data.”
When Gomez spoke with the Yuma Sun Thursday morning, 11,319 COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in Yuma County
since March. While the time frame within which individuals are considered infectious typically spans 10 to 14 days, Gomez said trying to identify just how many of these cases have recovered “is a tricky metric.”
“‘Recovered’ looks different to different people,” Gomez said. “‘Recovered’ means you don’t have any lingering effects. Some people don’t have symptoms after three days, some people don’t develop symptoms (at all), some people have lingering symptoms for weeks. When you look at our total positive cases and subtract the number of deaths, everybody else has either recovered or is one stage of recovery. But because it can take some people months and some people weeks and some people days, I can’t accurately say, ‘This many people have recovered.’”
In all, nearly 55,000 COVID-19 tests have been administered in Yuma County to date – a “bigger picture” that’s important to take into account, Gomez noted.
“When you see the number of positives come back, you have to look at the overall number,” she said. “You also want to look at the number of hospitalized patients – the number of people having complications. When those numbers go down, you see that overall the number of positive cases have probably gone down (as well), because that’s a reflection of that.”
While the recent decrease in confirmed cases is a turn in the right direction, Yuma County isn’t in the clear just yet.
“Right now they’re trending downward, which hopefully means we’re doing a really good job taking care of each other,” said Gomez. “If you walk around town, you’ll see that people are wearing their masks, they’re social distancing. Overall, hopefully we’re going to continue to see this trend – but it doesn’t mean it’s time to ease up or relax. It means that if we’re going in the right direction, we have to continue what we’re doing so that we continue to see those trends and hopefully see lower numbers of hospitalizations, a lower number of positives and hopefully a lower number of deaths.”
Currently, according to Gomez, Yuma County’s COVID-19 positivity rate is sitting at 17.6%. The health department’s goal is to lower that rate to at least 5%. To achieve this, Gomez recommends Yumans continue to mask up, social distance and practice good hand hygiene.
“As we see that positivity rate go down and our case numbers go down, we can maybe look at some of those mitigation strategies easing up,” she said. “But until that happens, we need to stay the course.”
Vigilance is especially important as the calendar turns toward September and October and, by default, flu season.
“As a community as a whole, we really need to do a good job of continuing to look out for each other,” she said. “When you wear a mask, you’re doing it to protect yourself and protect others. I know we have what we call ‘COVID fatigue,’ we all want to go back to our normal. But in September and October we’re going to go into flu season...and until we get a (COVID-19) vaccine or until we get enough herd immunity – which would mean at least 70% of the population has been exposed and recovered – we need to continue to do what we know is working.”
Gomez expressed her gratitude for the community’s adaptation to this “new normal” and diligence in following health directives like social distancing and the county’s face mask mandate.
“I know it requires a lot of sacrifice from people and I’m grateful that, as a community, we’re starting to see a downward trend in both the positive cases and the hospitalizations,” she said. “So I just want to thank the community for doing that, because I know it’s hard. I’m optimistic that, as a community, we’re going to get through this if we all share accountability and all do our best to get through this together.”