COVID updates from Dr. Hall - Holding Steady

COVID Update for Dunn County - holding steady. Apologies for the long absence, but the busy-ness of the semester plus decreases in frequency of data reporting from Wi DHS have delayed things a bit. Fortunately, we are not seeing a spike in cases now that schools are back in session. This is different from some other regions of the country and may well be due to the high rates of previous infection here due to less robust mitigation measures than other places. The pandemic is changing. It is definitely NOT over, as some have said. But it is changing. Hospitalizations continue, almost exclusively in people who are older and unvaccinated, but deaths are down, which is excellent. In Seattle's King's County, from whom we have data, unvaccinated folks over age 65 had almost 10x the rate of hospitalization as their age peers who were vaccinated. Yes, some vaccinated people are still getting hospitalized, but it's fortunately becoming much less common. This is good. The new boosters will likely help - for most older folks, their previous booster was almost a year ago, so it's protection has waned. I'm optimistic about the impact the current boosters can have IF people actually go and get them (please do)! In our area, cases still hover around the Substantial/High transmission level, so there's still a lot of COVID around. The hospitalizations have plateaued and are still enough to sometimes make the difference between there being bed availability and not. Our region can usually handle about 10 COVID hospitalizations without difficulty, but we've been hovering at that level for a while now. So, when a bad week with a few extra car accidents or heart attacks happens, we sometimes have very low to no bed availability. So, it'd be really nice for this to come down more and free up that capacity. It'd also be really nice for folks to not be getting so sick. In sum, happy news that we're not seeing a big fall wave. That could change with colder weather. Or not. Also good news that deaths are now quite rare. We are likely in for a more typical flu season this year, which could strain hospital capacity, especially if there's a bunch of COVID at the same time. So, if you're able, please get your new COVID booster and your flu shot if you haven't already!