Jefferson County has been here before: loosened pandemic restrictions, few new or active coronavirus cases, and a collective sigh of relief that an unprecedented global pandemic has, for the moment, abated. That was the case in June 2021, too. And then it came roaring back, with consecutive delta and omicron variant surges delivering the county’s highest rate of cases—and the most deaths—in a span of a few months, already a year and a half into a pandemic that was late to arrive in the county.
“We haven’t been here since June,” Pam Hanna, the county’s public heath supervisor, said this week, referring to last summer’s lull in cases of COVID, the disease caused by the coronavirus. “We’re just hovering right there where there are a few cases. Obviously our numbers haven’t dropped to zero. We’ve dropped to zero one or two days … but then we’ve got another case before we report again.”
The Jefferson County Public Health Department generally reports the number or new and active cases weekly, although Molly Carey, the department’s clinic coordinator, issued twice-weekly reports during the heights of surges in cases. The department reported two active cases on Monday, and three new cases total since the Monday before that, April 4, when the deportment also reported two active cases. The department reported only one active case in each of its weekly reports for the three weeks before that: March 7, 21 and 28.
