GREENE COUNTY, Mo. (KY3) - Missouri is now a few days into Tier 3 of vaccinations and local health leaders say we are seeing a lot of positive trends. But medical experts say we are not in the clear just yet.
“We are really pleased to see the numbers going down,” CoxHealth Incident Commander for COVID-19 response and Chief Hospital Officer Karen Kramer said Wednesday. “It just sort of went down precipitously in January and February and stayed low in March so far.”
This downward trend comes right along with continuing lines for those awaited shots.
”We’re really confident that it at least in part has to do with vaccinations,” Springfield-Greene County Health Department spokeswoman Kathryn Wall said Wednesday. “You know when vaccinations started in December we started to see those numbers turn a month later when people started being fully vaccinated.”
According to the health department’s updated numbers on Wednesday, cases are down 13% in the last week, averaging lows of 25 a day. Only 20 new cases were reported Wednesday, which brought total active cases in Greene County to 436.
”That’s still more than we want to see,” Wall said. “We need to be trending in a negative direction and still continuing to see those numbers drop. But they’ve been really encouraging.”
The Wednesday numbers also show there are only 42 current hospitalizations, 20 of those being Greene County residents, and 16 in critical care.
”It does seem that we still have very sick people that need to be hospitalized but not as many critical care is another trend we’re hopeful to see,” Kramer said.
But experts say there are still a few things everyone needs to keep in mind.
”This illness is going to continue to replicate and continue to potentially throw off new variants which could continue to be a risk for our community health,” Wall said.
Right now numbers of variants in the Midwest remain low, but health leaders say that could change.
“With how infectious these variants seem to be, it will likely make it to our community at some point in time,” Wall said. “Whether that is the California variant or the South American variant or whatever those may look like, that’s another thing to keep in mind.”
And although vaccinations continue to increase, now more than 10.5% in Greene County, there are still a few possible risks.
”Something we just don’t know a lot about quite yet is whether a person has been fully vaccinated could potentially pass on the illness to someone who isn’t,” Wall stated.
And if you just got your first dose this week, doctors say to remember you are not considered fully vaccinated until two weeks after that final dose. Even then, they say it does not necessarily make you immune.
”What the vaccines do is prevent a person from getting very seriously ill if they get the virus,” Kramer said. “It’s very effective of that. And that’s what we’re trying to do is keep people from having to be hospitalized from this disease.”
Kramer also said the area still needs to increase its overall vaccination rates.
“Even with our own employees, we’re only at a little over 50 percent of our healthcare workers,” she said. “So we’re still doing what we can to encourage our healthcare workers are getting vaccinated.”
Kramer said some of that comes down to hesitancy from people who are still concerned about how new the vaccines are. This is something the health department also has heard quite a bit about.
“This did come about in a way that did in a lot of ways feel really fast,” Wall said. “In all reality, no corners were cut in the development in this vaccine.”
In fact Kramer said data has proven it to be one of the safest vaccines out there. Wall also said she understands why some might still have their concerns. She said she encourages them to reach out to the health department or your physician if you still have questions.
The health department also says travel is still not recommended quite yet. But they say if you do travel over Spring break, you should take a COVID-19 test when you return home.
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