Under the new CDC guidelines, COVID levels in La Crosse County seem to be in frequent fluctuation, bouncing from high to low as frequently as week to week. 

Meller 

The fluctuations, however, are not necessarily indicative of rising or falling infection rates, says infectious disease expert Megan Meller of Gundersen Health System, and shouldn’t be cause for anxiety.

“One of the things we see a lot is of confusion between the different measurements… (CDC) community levels are different than community transmission,” says Meller. “Community level data itself also takes into account not just COVID 19 transmission, but also burden on the health care systems, like how many people are getting hospitalized with COVID, and then what the staffing look like for inpatient beds. Whereas when you just look at the transmission level, it’s just looking at the number of cases occurring within the population.”

Continues Meller, “And so those numbers could fluctuate wildly and that’s that’s what we’re seeing at play, depending on what’s happening within the community, like if people are traveling, if school is not in session, you’re you’re going to see the kind of these fluctuations, along with the fact that testing is also going very well.

People are also reading…

The CDC’s COVID-19 Community Level metric factors in the number of hospital beds being used, hospital admissions, and the total number of new cases in an area. A single measurement may not change much in a week’s time, but one or two of the others could fluctuate, affecting the level determination.

Per DHS data, seven day averages for the Wisconsin have ranged from the 1,400s to 1,900s over the past month, a significant increase from three digit figures — as low as the 200s — in early spring, but still a drastic decrease from early 2022, when averages were as high as 15,500. 

La Crosse County over the past four weeks has maintained a daily average in the 30s, and in May daily cases ranged from 40 to 60, per the Mayo Clinic data tracker.

The CDC put the COVID level in La Crosse County at high the week of Feb. 24, dropping to low the following week. The decline in cases per 100,000 only declined by around 25, from 174 to 150, but the hospitalization admissions per 100,000 had a large drop, from 21.8 to 9.3 per 100,000. Inpatient bed utilization went from 6.3 to 3.8 per 100,000.

La Crosse County was most recently high level on June 9, with cases at 219.46, hospital admissions at 10.5 and inpatient beds at 3.2. The County dropped to medium the following week and was low the past two weeks. For the week of June 30, cases were 177.94 per 100,000, hospital admissions 7 per 100,000 and inpatient beds at 2.5 per 100,000.

With overall case rates far lower than during the peak of omicron, Meller says, levels are “more of a concern on the hospitalization part.” 

“One of the things that we’re very strong advocates for is, of course, getting vaccinated,” says Meller, which not only lowers risk of infection but significantly reduces chances of severe disease, hospitalization and death. The recent CDC approval of vaccination for youth six months to four, the last age group to be authorized, is “really big,” Meller says, as COVID seems to be “here to stay.”

“I think we’re still learning what that baseline looks like. The more that we can get people vaccinated and the more that people understand what their own risk is, like we do with influenza, (the better off we’ll be),”Meller says.

CDC community level ratings come with guidelines for masking, with face coverings considered optional at low and medium levels but recommended for all, regardless of vaccination status, at high level. At present, Meller says, it is largely an individual judgement of whether you feel comfortable being unmasked in public. Considerations may include whether a person has been vaccinated, and boosted if eligible, and if they have health conditions that make them more susceptible to severe illness. 

Even when the county is at high level, Meller says, residents in most circumstances shouldn’t be overly worried about others being unmasked. 

“I don’t think it’s a huge concern at this point because we know that the vast amount of population is either vaccinated or they were exposed at one point. So they already have some immunity from COVID 19,” Meller says. However, she notes, “I think it’s really important for people to respect (the health of others) and mindful of their actions, and knowing who they’re around, in terms of masking.”

Though low levels don’t require masking in most settings, healthcare settings, including Gundersen and Mayo Clinic Health System, continue to require face coverings in their buildings. 

“That’s something that the CDC is very clear on,” Meller says. “We we have to go by actual transmission levels (rather than a hybrid of measurements).”

In addition to vaccination, and masking when appropriate, Meller emphasizes hand washing, staying home if feeling ill, being tested for COVID, and not touching your face without cleaning or disinfecting your hands first. With at-home COVID testing kits readily available, people will be better able to determine if they have a common cold or COVID, and isolate if necessary. 

Since Omicron’s rapid circulation, no other variants have caused mass spikes in case rates, and while future mutations of the virus are inevitable they hopefully won’t prove as dangerous.

“I think we are approaching this new phase of the pandemic,” Meller says. “We’re getting there. We’re about two and a half years in at this point, and it seems like a long slog. But we know we’re getting there and we’re working on trying to figure out how to how to live with this.”

Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.

[ad_2]

Originally Appeared Here