In a story published in ESI June 1, resident Mary Wise said she is concerned that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) puts out at least two maps tracking Covid-19 activity, one for the general public and one for health care providers so they can implement the correct protocols for the week.
“I feel the CDC and the government at all levels are putting lives at risk by having different criteria for risk for the public versus facilities that provide health care,” Wise was quoted in the article. “There are too many reports out verifying the decreased protection the Covid-19 vaccines and boosters provide to say that the vaccinated are safe to mingle sans masks. I suspect that the government wants to maintain the appearance that we have returned to ‘normal’.”
Dr. Joel Tumlison, physician specialist in outbreak response at the Arkansas Department of Health wrote in an email that the CDC has two different systems/metrics upon which they base mitigation/prevention recommendations.
“As the intro says, its purpose is to ‘help communities decide what prevention steps to take based on the latest data. Levels can be low, medium, or high and are determined by looking at hospital beds being used, hospital admissions, and the total number of new Covid-19 cases in an area,’” Tumlison wrote. “CDC looks at the combination of three metrics — new Covid-19 admissions per 100,000 population in the past 7 days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, and total new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 population in the past 7 days — to determine the Covid-19 community level. New Covid-19 admissions and the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied represent the current potential for strain on the health system. Data on new cases acts as an early warning indicator of potential increases in health system strain in the event of a Covid-19 surge.”
Tumlison said this measure was made due to being in a different phase of the pandemic where substantial portions of the population have a significant level of immunity to Covid-19 due to vaccination or prior infection.
“Therefore, it was felt appropriate to base widespread measures on the general public at least in part on how stressed the medical system is/was,” Tumlison said. “There is a whole list of the different recommendations at the low, medium, high Covid-19 Community Level. The one to most key in on as it is the most consequential is that of masking. CDC recommends the general public wear masks in all indoor public places when the level is high/orange.”
(cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019)
Tumlison said the CDC recommends healthcare facilities base masking decisions on the level of community transmission. This is measured by new cases in the past seven days and a test positivity rate of higher than two percent. He said if one of those measures is higher than the other, the higher one is used. It has different levels: low, moderate, substantial, high.
The Mayo Clinic Covid tracking website shows the test positivity rate in Arkansas has gone up from 2.4 percent on April 6 to 9.6 percent on June 4.
Recommendations of prevention practices in healthcare facilities state that while it is generally safest to implement universal use of source control for everyone in a healthcare setting, allowances could be considered for individuals who are up to date with all recommended Covid-19 vaccine doses in healthcare facilities located in counties with low to moderate community transmission. These individuals might choose to continue using source control if they or someone in their household is immunocompromised or at increased risk for severe disease, or not up to date with Covid-19 vaccine doses.
“Our policies for ADH facilities are based on these two recommendations from CDC,” Tumlinson wrote. “For local health units and areas that are healthcare facilities, doing clinical work, when masking is required of staff follows… community transmission. For Central office and other sites like Freeway that are not doing clinical care, then the policy requires mask wearing when Covid-19 community level is high. The reason for CDC’s difference in recommendations is boiled down to healthcare facilities being unique places taking care of the sick and people at higher risk, so there is a need to be more careful. In addition, sick people show up to healthcare facilities for care, meaning more precaution is needed.
“Note that it can be a little confusing on the Covid Tracker page, as both measures can be gotten off the same map; you just adjust the “Data Type” and “Map Metric” drop-down above the map from “Covid-19 Community Levels” to “Community Transmission.”
Eureka Springs Hospital Marketing Director Samantha Jones said demand for Covid testing has increased a little bit, but it is not crazy. ESH is averaging seven or eight tests per day, with one positive.
Active cases in Carroll County have increased from 28 to 37 in the week prior to June 6, according to ADH, which revised the county death toll down from 104 to 103.
The CDC states that community level risk in Carroll County is currently low. Immunocompromised people should seek treatment within three days of testing positive for Covid-19.