Delta County’s COVID-19 positive cases continue in a downward trend, from Tuesday, December 14, 2021 through today, Delta County has seen 57 new cases for a total of 4740; Delta County’s positivity is 7.7 %. Sadly, Delta County Health Department is reporting 4 additional deaths bringing our total to 115; one female and one male 65-74, and one female and one male 75-84. Our deepest condolences to the families; we ask for their privacy during this difficult time…
— from the December 20 COVID-19 Update from the Delta County, Colorado, Health Department
One of the interesting situations unfolding over the past few months, in Archuleta County, was the creation of a volunteer investigative committee — the Health District Investigation Committee — to look into a couple of pertinent questions connected with the San Juan Basin Public Health district.
Are Archuleta County citizens getting their money’s worth, from the $275,000 we contribute to SJBPH from the Archuleta County budget each year?
Could Archuleta County citizens be better served, if we created our own local public health department, separate from SJBPH?
These two very important questions were not answered by the Health District Investigation Committee, in the final report presented to the Board of County Commissioners earlier this month, following four months of committee meetings and research into six Colorado county public health departments. Instead, the committee recommended further analysis and research before making any significant changes in the relationship between SJBPH and the Archuleta County government.
The argument for more research was made by the committee’s secretary, Marybeth Snyder, speaking at the December 21 BOCC meeting.
“I think what we came up with is: there are more questions. I kind of envision a whole new committee to do the next step, because what we dug up, dug up more questions. Like, we’re not far enough along to have an opinion…”
The six health agencies studied were SJBPH, Alamosa County, Delta County, Gilpin County, Grand County, and Montezuma County. I wrote a previous editorial on this situation, which you can read here.
I’m thinking about a certain question this morning — ‘Is Archuleta County being well-served by SJBPH?’ — because I visited the COVID-19 dashboard on the SJBPH website this morning. SJBPH serves both La Plata and Archuleta counties, and has been tracking COVID-19 cases and alleged fatalities since March, 2020. Here’s one of the data displays they are sharing this morning… in this case, the ‘summary’ for La Plata County.
We’ve shared these charts often in the Daily Post, and they are easy to find on the SJBPH website.
Looking at the La Plata County numbers from March 1, 2020 through December 28, 2021 (shown above) we notice that December 28, 2021 shows the second highest number of “new cases” (108 new cases) since November 23, 2020… over a year ago… with 162 new cases that day.
While viewing this graph, two questions popped into my head.
1. Why is there no information about hospitalizations? It’s all very sensible to track “new cases”, but — according to the CDC’s numbers from December 18 — 99% of all cases are either asymptomatic, or never result in a trip to the hospital.
We certainly recognize that, once you enter a hospital, your chance of dying is greatly elevated. (For any illness, of course.) But why isn’t SJBPH sharing with us, in actual numbers, the rate of COVID-19 hospitalizations?
We have a few numbers, regarding hospitalizations, from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, showing that (as of this morning) about 16% of available hospital beds are occupied by ‘confirmed or suspected COVID patients’. We are not told, however, what that actual number might be.
300 people, statewide? 1,000 people? 10,000?
These questions, about hospitalizations, brought up a second question for me… relative to the Health District Investigative Committee (HDIC).
2. How many of the six health districts, investigated by HDIC, are currently displaying ‘hospitalizations’? As of my research this morning, only two of the public health organizations studied by the HDIC had charts showing ‘data trends’ on their websites. SJBPH and Grand County. (The Montezuma County Health Department website was not accessible, as of this morning.)
I also found a graph from the San Luis Valley Public Health Partnership (below) which shows data only through mid-October. This partnership was not specifically studied by the HDIC.
The other ‘data trends’ graphic I found was from Grand County (below). It showed a significant increase in ‘new daily cases’ since the end of October, and also included numbers of people hospitalized. Apparently, an average of about one person per week is being hospitalized there, out of about 75 new cases per week.
We’re not clear exactly what “Hospitalizations” means in this chart. “Confirmed cases of COVID only”? “Other illness, accompanied by COVID”?
So, then we arrive back at Archuleta County.
We don’t have data on hospitalizations. But, otherwise, how are we doing? Reasonably well, right at this very moment.
We had a nasty spike in new cases between October 12 and December 7, however, setting a record for the number of new confirmed cases (32) on November 30.
Our death rate remains fairly low, despite our generally older demographic. So low that SJBPH has not yet bothered to add an ‘s’ to the word ‘Death’.
We also have a relatively average rate of vaccination. 59% “fully immunized” according to SJBPH. The U.S. as a whole is about 61% “fully vaccinated” according to the CDC website.
I personally prefer the term “fully vaccinated” over the term “fully immunized”. Even if folks got three vaccinations during 2021, no one seems to be “immune” to COVID-19.