COVID cases stay steady, future unpredictable
There were fewer than 100 new COVID-19 cases in Trempealeau County for the second straight week, but health officials aren’t able to predict if another decline is on the horizon.
The Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 96 new COVID-19 cases in Trempealeau County last week. That was five more than what was reported two weeks ago, but still the second-fewest in a single week since the end of August. Whether cases will decline or spike — as they did a year ago at this time — going forward, is anybody’s guess.
“COVID-19 has been anything but clear cut,” Gabrielle Lentz of the Trempealeau County Health Department said. “There are so many factors that play into transmission such as mask wearing, physical distancing, gatherings, events, vaccination status, etc. The variant strains of COVID-19 have been the dominant strain in Wisconsin, which likely contributed to the spike.”
Lentz said the variant strains are more transmissible meaning it can spread the virus faster which in turn infects more people.
Area schools have largely seen a decrease in cases. There were 20 new cases reported by the DHS amongst residents of the Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau School District. While that was the highest in the area, it was still about a third of what residents in that district reported roughly a month ago. G-E-T put a face-covering mandate in place in late-September and extended it until at least this Friday despite a drop in cases (see story elsewhere in this week’s Times).
Independence has had a face-covering mandate in place since the start of the school year, but residents of that district had the second-most cases last week with 11. Arcadia also had 11 cases with no mandate. Whitehall doesn’t have a mandate and there were nine cases reported amongst residents of that district, while Blair-Taylor only had a mandate for the elementary school and had four reported cases amongst residents of that district.
“We do not have substantial data to determine if schools masking policies might be a contributing factor to disease spread,” Lentz said.
She added that the health department still recommends masking of all individuals. “Masking is one of many mitigation strategies that can help slow the spread of not only COVID, but also other respiratory illnesses such as RSV and Influenza.”
Of the new cases, 19 had Osseo zip codes, according to the DHS, while Eleva and Galesville area residents had 11 new cases. The Arcadia and Independence areas both had 10 new cases, Trempealeau was next with seven followed by Ettrick and Strum, four; Blair, three and Whitehall, two.
October is when cases began to spike in the county last year with 510 cases reported by the DHS, but that exploded to 1,273 cases in November. That could be the case again this year, though Lentz said more precautions are in place.
“It is very hard to predict if we will have another spike around the holidays,” Lentz said. “We certainly did see a spike around that time last year. There is a chance of a spike due to increased gatherings without mitigation strategies that typically occur. One thing that we have going into the holidays this year that we didn’t last year is the vaccine.”
Lentz said the vaccines are the most effective way to stop the spread of COVID-19. The health department is hosting free COVID-19 vaccine clinics this week. Clinics will be held at Whitehall High School from noon to 7 p.m. on Wednesday and at the G-E-T Middle School from 4 to 6 p.m. on Friday.
