HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — Across the board going into the holidays, more people were getting COVID-19, according to Ottawa County’s top health official Lisa Stefanovsky.
She told Ottawa County Commissioners on Nov. 24, 2020, the number of people testing positive has increased by a factor of five since early October, when the rolling average fell around 3 percent, which manageable for healthcare workers.
But last week, people were testing positive at a rate closer to 17 percent. COVID-19 case counts went up 241 percent, since Oct. 1, for a rolling average of more than 300 people a day learning they have the virus. While early cases suggested mostly older people were getting sick, at this point, Stefanovsky told commissioners, the numbers are rising regardless of age, sex, ethnicity, race and geography.
As of Friday, Spectrum Health reported 250 COVID-19 patients with two on the waiting list and 35 ill employees. Holland Hospital’s dashboard shows 45 COVID-19 patients admitted.
Overall, Ottawa County health officials reported 129 deaths as of Wednesday, since mid-March. (Allegan County, which has less than half the number of residents as Ottawa, has reported 27 deaths since mid-March, most of them since October.)
The sheer numbers of people needing tests is stressing labs, as well, with result times going from 2.2 days to more than four days.
Ottawa County has been relying on state officials to help with contact tracing but rapidly rising numbers of people getting ill has created systemic backlogs.
Those numbers, and predications of holiday related surges, led to Ottawa County Commissioners approved an extension of the county-wide state of emergency, originally approved on March 24, 2020, through 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2021. This will allow county officials to act quickly in response to sudden changes driven by the pandemic, according to county officials.
Comments