For the past couple months, I have been cautiously optimistic that our county is moving toward a healthy trend related to COVID-19 illness. Case counts and hospitalizations have been down. Vaccination rates have consistently increased. Public health staff have focused time and energy on other public health needs. Workloads have stabilized.
Recently, increasing case counts have sparked new concern for our department. During the past month, Jefferson County has experienced its greatest increase in cases since February of 2021. In July, 75% of Jefferson County’s diagnosed COVID-19 cases that month were reported during the last week of the month. We saw an increase from two active cases to 12 active cases during that week. Our county has experienced an increase of 82 cases, four hospitalizations and a death between July 28 and Aug. 30, 2021.
Increased caseloads are impacting surrounding counties and our health care infrastructure as well. Hospitalizations are creeping back up. We do not see signs of the rate slowing down in the coming weeks. The greatest percentage of those admitted to the hospital are unvaccinated individuals. We are seeing younger people requiring hospitalization, including children. Statistically, 98% of the cases we have investigated this month have been unvaccinated individuals. Eight of those cases were children under the age of 12. Currently, none of the COVID-19 vaccines are authorized for children under the age of 12 years.
