Health director: Another Polk County COVID-19 surge would be ‘catastrophic’

Polk County is seeing a COVID-19 slowdown, but still is risking a new surge as a hot spot with double the number of cases health officials projected. 

“We had been on a pretty solid and steady deceleration for the late weeks of November and first couple of weeks of December,” Dr. Meghan Schaeffer, an epidemiologist consulting with Polk County, told a meeting of local private and government health and emergency management officials. Polk County, which includes the capital of Des Moines, is Iowa’s most-populous area.

“We’re in mid-month now and we’re still seeing a slow decline, but it is not to the extent we had hoped it would be,” Schaeffer said. “Where we really need to be in terms of the deceleration is fewer than 100 new cases per day or 100. So we’re still well over that average, which potentially sets us up for a serious surge in the month of January.”

Polk County has averaged 239 cases a day over the past week, more than double county health officials’ target. Polk County had 333 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past week, triple the level the White House coronavirus task force considers a hot spot, Schaeffer said. 

Schaeffer added that while the county needs to get its test positivity under 5%, it was 12.8% over the past seven days. That is under the rate of 15% over the last two weeks. Statewide, average positivity rates have run 11.4% over the past week and 15.2% over the past 14 days, the state reported. 

“We face challenges as significant community transmission of the virus continues,” said Helen Eddy, director of the Polk County Health Department. “While the November surge has declined, we are not out of the woods yet. Simply put, another surge from our current hospitalization levels will be catastrophic.”

Eddy asked local residents to limit gatherings to members of their own households over the holidays, to wear a mask “at all times” in public places, wash their hands frequently and to stay 6 feet away from others. 

“There is light and hope in the form of a vaccine. Our holiday wish for the citizens of Polk County is one of strength and patience,” Eddy said. “This is not the time to give up. Stay strong and safe during the coming weeks and months. We will beat this virus.”

Eddy said two Des Moines hospitals each received 975 doses of the approved Pfizer vaccine this week. She said does not know now many will be in the next shipments.

Statewide, Iowa has seen a 31% drop in the number of new COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks, but a 102% increase in deaths, the New York Times reported. Hospitalizations have dropped by a third in the same period, according to the newspaper’s database. 

Iowa recorded 653 new cases and 60 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday, the Times reported. That brought the totals since the pandemic began to 256,902 cases and 3,269 deaths.