COVID-19 numbers remain low in Lake County
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Healthcare professionals recommend wearing a mask while in the grocery store and when a six-foot distance is difficult to maintain.
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LAKE COUNTY – The good news is that all five of the COVID-19 cases in Lake County have recovered, but it doesn’t mean that it’s time to let down your guard.
The first case in the county was reported on March 26 and the fifth was on April 6. The Governor’s Coronavirus Task Force reported that, as of May 4, there are 457 total cases in the state.
“We are very fortunate that we’ve only had five,” said Lake County Public Health nurse Leigh Estvold.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, once the highly contagious virus begins to spread in a community, it becomes difficult to control. “Given the rapid rate of spread as seen in current outbreaks in Europe, we need to be aware of the difficulty of controlling SARS-CoV-2 once it establishes sustained human-to-human transmission in a new population.”
Lake County and communities across the world are utilizing social distancing to reduce the impact of the virus.
“Our results suggest that a combination of control measures, including early and active surveillance quarantine and especially strong social distancing efforts are needed to slow down or stop the spread of the virus. If measures are not implemented early and strongly, the virus has the potential to spread rapidly and infect a large fraction of the population, overwhelming the healthcare system.”
In Lake County, Estvold said residents have taken “diligent measures” to maintain social distancing and the efforts are paying off. “Everyone is doing their best with social distancing and handwashing,” she said, although, people could do a bit more. “I’d like to see more masks,” she said.
Anytime people are not able to maintain a six-foot distance, they need a mask, Estvold said. Along with masks, she recommends people continue to wash their hands and avoid group gathering.
The CDC is working to better understand COVID-19 in the United States. Testing helps officials learn about how many people have been infected and how it is spreading. Testing supplies, which include swabs, are now well-stocked in Lake County. “Both hospitals, the clinics and the tribe are well set up with supplies,” Estvold said.
Healthcare providers use swabs to test individuals with symptoms of COVID-19, and the samples are sent to the state lab. “People are swabbed here and the test is sent to Helena.”
Along with more testing supplies, the state also has the capacity to do more testing, she said. “We have plenty of tests,” she said. “Anyone who has at least two symptoms is getting tested.”
Initially, a person needed to have shortness of breath, coughing and fever to get tested, but more supplies have given healthcare providers the ability to do more tests. “We have been able to expand testing to include people with chills, muscle aches, headache, sore throat and loss of taste and smell.”
Lake County Emergency Management Coordinator Mark Clary is working with incident commanders in the county from the health department, hospitals and county and tribal governments to allocate resources and coordinate needs in the county. As a team, they collaborate as the CSKT-Lake County Unified Command Center.
The UCC talked about the low number of cases in the county. “Everyone is pretty happy that we went an entire month without having a new case,” Clary said.
He added that the first five people in the county who had the virus should be commended for taking action to self-quarantine, which most likely saved lives. “The people that had the virus were smart enough to know that they should stay home – kudos to them for doing their part,” he said.
Clary said the Lake County Health Department and Tribal Health have done an “outstanding” job at keeping track of COVID-19 positive cases, following up on contacts and putting out messages for the community about the need for hand washing and social distancing.
Residents in the county are also being commended for following social distancing guidelines. Clary said the efforts people have taken are preventing community spread of the virus. While following pandemic guidlines, people are finding creative ways to connect.
“We are seeing people improvising and thinking outside the box and I love that,” he said. “When we started into this shutdown, we didn’t know how things were going to go, but so far, everyone has done really well. We have found out that we can work from home, and we can work together to keep everyone safe. We’ve got our two governments, the county and the tribe, working together as a unified front because this is about all of us.”
