Covid numbers holding steady

By LIAM MAYO
Posted 11/22/22

UPPER DELAWARE RIVER VALLEY—COVID-19 radically disrupted daily life when it first reached the United States.

Swaths of the country shut down. Those who could do so worked from home. Those …

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Covid numbers holding steady

Posted

UPPER DELAWARE RIVER VALLEY—COVID-19 radically disrupted daily life when it first reached the United States.

Swaths of the country shut down. Those who could do so worked from home. Those who couldn’t wore face masks and tried to keep themselves safe.

Two-and-a-half years later, life has returned to normal for many people in many ways. More meetings happen in person, and fewer people wear masks to those meetings.

But does that mean the pandemic is over?

Not so, according to Sullivan County public health director Nancy McGraw.

“COVID-19 is not ‘over’ as most people would prefer at this stage of the pandemic, although the rate of infections and hospitalizations has been drastically reduced over this past year with the availability of vaccines and boosters,” said McGraw.

The reduced rate of hospitalization shows in the region’s community levels, a metric from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  that measures the number of new COVID admissions and the percentage of inpatient beds in use by COVID-19 patients. The metric is meant to guide behavior and keep hospital systems from being overwhelmed.

Sullivan County in New York and Wayne and Pike counties in Pennsylvania all have low community levels (as updated Thursday, November 17).

Sullivan has 146 total cases of COVID-19, for a weekly case rate of 193.55 per 100,000 people. Wayne has 48 total, a rate of 93.46 per 100,000; Pike has 58 total, a rate of 103.43 per 100,000.

“I think we are doing pretty good on the COVID-19 front,” said Tim Knapp, Pike County’s emergency management director. The county is seeing a lot of cases of influenza and other types of colds this year, he added.

Infection and hospitalization rates are down across the region from the surge in December of 2021. But COVID-19 is still present in the community, and health departments in the region continue to keep their eyes on vaccination rates even at this stage of the pandemic.

Knapp’s department has overseen COVID-19 vaccination clinics at the Pike County Training Center; the Wayne Memorial Community Health Centers has also offered vaccines in Wayne and Pike counties at different points in the past year.

“We did hold some COVID-19 clinics this fall at the training center, to try to get everyone who wanted a booster shot [to get] theirs and also any new folks that wanted the vaccine got it,” says Knapp. “We did the same with our homebound folks.”

McGraw recommended that all New Yorkers older than six months get vaccinated and get their booster doses when eligible. “One concern we have is a limited uptake of bivalent boosters and the spread of new variants, which may lead to increasing levels of SARS-CoV-2 this winter… The vaccine’s effectiveness may wane over time, as do many vaccines, which is why boosters are important,” she said.

The vaccine’s protection remains important as hospitalizations and deaths of COVID-19 continue to occur in the Upper Delaware River Valley. Wayne County has seen eight COVID-19 deaths since October 1, Sullivan has had six and Pike has had three.

COVID-19, rates, hospitalizations

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