Washington supervisor challenges health director on reports

At last week's Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting, Jack Seward Jr. challenged Public Health Administrator Danielle Pettit-Majewski if the other side of the story would be presented at the upcoming forum on ways masks prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

He said there are two points of view that should be presented at any public forum on the subject.

Seward's challenges of Pettit-Majewski's presentations have become a regular part of the weekly board meetings.

A recent Union story quoted area health officials as warning that the COVID-19 virus is here to stay. Individuals should take every precaution to protect themselves and others with social distancing and the use of face covering.

Seward's argument is it's also important to put the number of cases Washington County has experienced in perspective and to learn how to interpret the numbers.

At a recent press conference, Gov. Kim Reynolds challenged the state's media to tell the full, balanced story about the impact of the virus on their communities.

At the Aug. 4 Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting, board members heard the latest Washington County update from Pettit-Majewski who reported that to date there have been 292 positive cases in the county and 265 of those have recovered.

The population of the county is 21,965. So far, 3,058 people in the county have been tested. That means that through the entire pandemic in Washington County, 13.9 percent of the population has been tested and 9.5 percent of those tested have tested positive for the virus.

Almost 91 percent of them have recovered.

Seward sees the numbers differently than Pettit-Majewski.

'The COVID-19 data that I prefer to look at are how many people – as a percent of the population – got or had the disease, and how many recovered” he said. 'The problem is we just don't truly know how many people actually had COVID-19.”

Seward said the numbers of those hospitalized and those who have recovered are known. He said based on Centers for Disease Control seasonal flu information since 2010, that tends to show that twice the number that visit the doctor had the flu, and so less than 2 percent of people with the flu are hospitalized, and 99 percent of them recover.

'If we use that trend – and we have 292 positive cases, we likely have had about 600 actual cases,” Seward said. 'So with 11 deaths either from COVID-19 or with it, the recovery rate overall is over 98 percent.”

Pettit-Majewski calls Seward's logic 'a little muddy.”

'We've had an overall test positivity rate of 9.4 percent of the 3,058 cases that have been tested,” she said. 'However, I would say this isn't necessarily reflective of the overall burden of disease in our county.”

Pettit-Majewski notes that in the early days of the pandemic 'we had to instruct those who felt ill to stay home and isolate, as we didn't have the tests or the resources to treat patients.”

She said officials have seen asymptomatic individuals test positive with outbreak surveillance testing and pre-surgical testing.

'Because there are people who are asymptomatic but can still shed virus,” she said, it's hard to have a full grasp of the impact on our community, so we go by the positivity rate for the tests that have been done.”

Both Seward and Pettit-Majewski agree the best way to measure the current impact of COVID-19 on Washington County is to look to the rolling 14-day positivity rate with the understanding that it is based only on those people tested for the virus and not the total population of the county.

Pettit-Majewski reported at the Aug. 4 Board of Supervisors meeting that the 14-day rolling positivity rate was 6.7 percent as of Aug. 3. On Friday, the 14-day average positivity rate in the county had risen to 8 percent.

'We must continue hand washing and social distancing,” Seward said.

Use masks when social distancing is not possible and especially if you think you might be coming down with something. If that is the case, quarantine yourself and call your medical provider.

'I do not think mask mandates are called for – personal responsibility and risk assessment based on the situation is the better way to go,” Seward said. 'Nothing we ever do is without risk, so each of us have to decide for ourselves how to respond.”

Pettit-Majewski said ongoing measures are important.

'Regardless of where we sit with cases and recovered rates, we still need to recognize that until we … have herd immunity from a vaccine, we still need to follow the recommendations of maintaining 6 feet of distance between yourself and others, wearing a mask or face covering when you're out in public, practicing good hand hygiene and staying home as much as you're able”, Pettit-Majewski said.

She added: 'These recommendations are not given to instill fear, but instead to promote ways to protect the health of our community, friends, and neighbors.

Pettit-Majewski said the goal of public health is to focus on prevention.

'We want it to look like we overreacted. That's the best case scenario. That will mean it worked,” she said. 'Our goal is not to increase our numbers, fill our beds or tax our healthcare system. Our goal is to get the spread under control so we can send our children to school safely and allow them to stay there without disruptions, allow long-term care residents to have visitors and move forward.”

She added: 'I understand there is COVID fatigue, but this isn't over.”