Not out of the woods: Health officials say falling COVID numbers could be misleading

Dr. Raymond Kiser wears a COVID-19 vaccine sticker after receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a Columbus Regional Health facility in Columbus, Ind., Thursday, Dec. 17, 2020. Dr. Kiser was the first person to receive the vaccine in Columbus. Mike Wolanin | The Republic

COLUMBUS, Ind. — Local health officials are concerned about pandemic fatigue and a “false sense of security” among residents as hospitalizations and infection rates start to fall from the sky-high levels seen during the winter surge because more cases of the U.K. variant of the virus are being detected in Indiana.

A total of 163 Bartholomew County residents tested positive for COVID-19 from Feb. 12 to 18, down from 178 the week prior, according to the Indiana State Department of Health.

By comparison, 587 Bartholomew County residents tested positive for COVID-19 the week ending Nov. 22 and 390 the week ending Jan. 10.

Metrics from the COVID-19 Community Task Force also show a declining weekly per-capita positivity rate in the county falling to 25.4 per 100,000 residents on Wednesday, down from 106.4 per 100,000 on Nov. 20 and 60.7 on Jan. 13.

Additionally, there were 11 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at Columbus Regional Health this past Wednesday, down from 59 in early December, the hospital said.

While many metrics are trending down in Bartholomew County, hospitalizations and positivity rates are still higher than in the early fall, including Wednesday’s weekly per-capita positivity, which was still more than triple the rate of 6.8 per 100,000 residents on Sept. 2.

The hospital went 45 consecutive days with fewer than 10 hospitalizations from Aug. 27 to Oct. 10.

Dr. Slade Crowder, CRH vice president of physician enterprise operations, said he is concerned about “COVID fatigue” and the “logical but incorrect assumption that we’re out of the woods.”

“While the trends are coming down, we’re coming down from very high peaks,” Crowder said. “…We still have high community spread in Bartholomew County, and it’s easy to kind of lose sight when we had such a high peak. It’s easy to get a false sense of security that things are getting back to normal.”

For more on this story, see Sunday’s Republic.