Watch: Springfield-Greene County Health Dept. discusses declining Covid-19 numbers

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - According to the Springfield-Greene County Health Dept. COVID-19 cases among children ages 5-17 went up by 300% in January of this year. In January alone, 37 people died from Covid-19 complications in Greene County. However, COVID-19 numbers are starting to trend in the other direction.

“It’s good news and we’ve seen a steady decline since our high on January 20,” said Kendra Findley with the Springfield-Greene County Health Dept. “We had a daily reporting figure of just over 1100 cases. Compare that to yesterday when our daily case count was about 150.”

Findley cited the highly contagious nature of the Omicron variant for the declining numbers, saying it has most likely burned through the susceptible population.

Should people be able to let their guard down?

“You know, you’ve just got to be really careful,” said Findley. “This pandemic is really about personal responsibility. We can do things to help control this pandemic, and it is get boosted. So if you need to get vaccinated and get boosted, you can wear a mask, which the CDC just published a study that shows that wearing an N-95, or KN-95 mask reduces your chances of getting sick by 83% and then get tested if you think you’re sick, get tested so that you’ll know if you’re positive to stay home and stay isolated, and then to be able to notify your close contact so that they can monitor themselves for symptoms.”

Findley said there are risks of future variants popping up.

“We’re dealing with a live organism here and anytime you’re dealing with a virus, what it does is it mutates and so we’ve just got to keep that in mind,” said Findley. “We’re so tired. I mean, I know the public is tired. I feel for our healthcare partners because they’ve been through this for two years. So you know, I expect to see more mutations come through. So it’s just a matter of remembering what we ourselves can do to protect our health care system because you’re going to be overwhelmed, or that they’re there to take care of us, not just for COVID but you know for other health care matters.”

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