BAY CITY, MI - COVID-19 cases are rising across Bay County particularly among unvaccinated residents due to the delta variant making its rounds. One health official to said that the best way he could describe the variant is something akin to a forest fire.
“You’ve got to think of the delta variant as a forest fire and unvaccinated persons are dry tinder,” said health officer Joel Strasz of the Bay County Health Department
Strasz said this statement while providing an update to the Bay County Board of Commissioners during their regular meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 14 regarding the COVID-19 situation in Bay County. In a nutshell, Strasz said that the delta variant is responsible for an increase in cases.
Strasz said that Bay County had seen its lowest period of virus activity since the pandemic started during the month of June and July with only maybe a case or two a day. However, he explained how that the delta variant has changed those numbers dramatically and that the county is seeing what he estimates to be 18 - 25 cases a day.
“It is four times as transmissible if not more than previous strains of the virus and the original strain of the virus,” Strasz said. “As a result, we’re seeing an increase of cases and increases in the number of serious cases. A lot of these cases that are coming and that are active currently are because of in-school transmission.”
At this time, there is no county-wide school mask mandate for Bay County like the one in Genesee County that requires masks for students in indoor settings for all students age 5 and up, unless one of seven exemptions are met. No schools have had to shutter at this time in Bay County due to a new “test-to-stay” policy, according to Strasz, which allows students who are identified as a close contact to someone who tests positive for COVID-19 to undergo a five-day rapid testing regimen.
Students are then able to stay in school each day that they test negative allows and they are not required to isolate themselves.
According to the MI Safe Start Map, Bay County saw a test positivity rate of 10.9% for the virus in a time span from Sept. 7-13, which has the county sitting in a high-risk category. The 7-day test positivity rate was 5.5% on Aug. 1 and 0.7% on July 1.
The state is reporting that Bay County had 250 weekly cases of COVID-19 reported from Sept. 7-13, compared to 101 in the week prior from Aug. 31-Sept. 6. Back on Aug. 1, Bay County only had 30 cases from a time period from July 26-Aug 1. As of July 1, a total of seven weekly cases were reported in a time frame from June 25 - July 1.
Strasz said that the health department maintains regular conversations with McLaren Bay Region. According to those conversations, the virus and the delta variant appears to be hitting the unvaccinated hard at this time.
“About nine out of 10 people that are actually admitted to the hospital and have serious cases are unvaccinated, so we’re redoubling our efforts as much as we possibly can to get people vaccinated but however, we’ve kind of reached the saturation point at this point in time,” said Strasz.
According to data provided by the state, 56.4% of residents in Bay County have received two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as of Wednesday, Sept. 15. 61.4% of residents have initiated vaccination, which means that they have received either one or more dose of any vaccine.
Strasz said that the Bay County Health Department is redoubling its efforts to encourage more vaccinations, however, Strasz said that Bay County is at a “saturation point” right now.
“We do anticipate as the variant grows that we will probably see increases in the number of people that are wanting to get vaccinated, maybe they’ve been sitting on a fence for one reason or another or maybe that they just didn’t believe that the vaccination was necessary but it is.”
Strasz emphasized the importance of vaccination in his presentation to the board while emphasizing that the Bay County Health Department is trying to maintain “life as normal” for residents.
“All that being said, we’re doing our best to try to mitigate the spread but to maintain life as normal as possible. At this point in time last year there was no vaccine, there were no standardized treatments,” said Strasz. “That has changed. The vaccine is readily available, people that are vaccinated are ten times less likely to have serious illness and end up in the hospital, ten times less likely to die as a result of COVID-19 than a person that is unvaccinated.”
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