Projections suggest Montana's virus cases 'leveling out'

Flathead County’s Public Health Officer said Thursday that based on current projections and what data is available, the coronavirus outbreak in Flathead County and Montana as a whole “appears to be leveling out and starting to go down.”

Hillary Hanson, health officer and incident commander for coronavirus, Hillary Hanson, relayed this highlight and other important virus-related updates to the Flathead County Board of Health during the group’s public meeting that took place online. She cautioned early on, however, that the state’s limited testing abilities and how new information on the virus is emerging, are factors to be considered.

But according to Hanson, it seems Gov. Steve Bullock’s shelter-in-place directive is a likely contributor to the state’s decrease in the number of new positive cases, based on data and information available. Since the order went into effect on March 26, there has been a steady decline in positives, with the state health department reporting only five new cases on both Monday and Tuesday last week and 11 cases on Wednesday — a number that is still far below Montana’s current peak of 35 cases in late March.

For further evaluation of Montana’s current situation, Hanson said the health department has started comparing the state’s case numbers and trends to other states with similar demographics, which include some that have no stay-at-home orders in place.

For example, North Dakota has tested more individuals than Montana and that state’s health department is currently showing nearly 400 of those have come back positive compared to Montana’s 415, as was reported on Thursday. However, North Dakota has an estimated population of about 400,000 less individuals than Montana and no shelter-in-place directive in place.

As a more drastic example, one can look at South Dakota, where no stay-at-home order is currently in place. While the state’s estimated population (884,000) is less than Montana, there have been more than 1,300 positives recorded — a figure that has drastically increased in the past week whereas Montana’s numbers have steadily declined.

Idaho, Washington and Wyoming have also been evaluated next to Montana. These numbers suggest several points, but overall Hanson said she believes they show Montana is in a good place, comparatively.

Board members had several questions regarding the Montana’s current data and the neighboring state comparisons. And new board member Dr. Annie Bukacek raised several concerns of her own, primarily emphasizing how she wishes the county’s COVID-19 website would “display deaths related to influenza and bacterial pneumonia” as well.

Bukacek, a Kalispell physician with deep reservations about the vaccination industry, said the flu and bacterial pneumonia are “similar to COVID” and the public could have a more “balanced perspective” on the virus if those statistics were posted as well.

Hanson pointed out the county already releases influenza-related information on a monthly basis and the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services releases similar reports as well that are readily available to the public.

However, Bukacek maintained the accessibility of such figures compared to the COVID numbers should be easier to locate, even though Hanson stated both figures being readily displayed on local government websites.

DURING THE meeting Hanson touched on current numbers for Flathead County and other points of interest.

She said specifically there are 37 confirmed cases of coronavirus overall in the county, and two of those individuals are currently hospitalized and there have been 15 recoveries.

According to Jennifer Rankosky with the health department, a recovery “refers to a case that meets the CDC’s criteria to be released from isolation.” There are two methods used to determine this — one includes testing and one does not.

“For a patient to meet the non-testing criteria, the case must have 72 hours without fever, without use of fever-reducing medicines, and it has [to have] been seven days since the onset of symptoms and there has to be improvement in respiratory symptoms,” Rankosky wrote in an email.

For patients who fall in the testing criteria, the case must also no longer have a fever, other symptoms must be improved and the individual must receive two negative tests in a row, 24 hours apart.

Hanson also said as of Thursday 43 people in the community were being monitored closely for symptoms of the virus and staff have finished monitoring 112 people. An example of someone who might be monitored includes someone who made “close contact” to another who has tested positive.

The monitoring team is one of three established within the county’s incident command structure, Hanson told Health Board members. The other two legs of the system includes those who answer phones to speak with concerned community members and an investigation team tasked with finding out where exposure occurred for positive cases and who else they may have come in contact with.

Several board members offered words of encouragement and support for health-care workers in the valley, praising them for their efforts during the outbreak.