By Josh Margolis
HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – In a unanimous vote, the Hill County Commission has approved the Health Board’s recommendation to discontinue quarantine orders for close contacts of positive COVID-19 cases.
Instead, the Health Department will now issue strong recommendations to quarantine.
The other option the Board and Commission were provided was to serve every close contact with quarantine orders, regardless of vaccination status. However, Berg and the Commission said that option was inferior since it would further strain the Health Department and significantly disrupt school and work.
“As someone who worked in public health prior to my election, I am not too keen on either option,” said Commissioner Jake Strissel, who was previously a behavioral health specialist for Bullhook Community Health Center. “Given the recent changes from the legislative session and listening to community members, I do feel that option two is the lesser of two evils at this juncture.”
One change from the initial recommendation is that all close contacts to cases will continue to be notified provided that the Health Department’s “capacity is manageable.”
“What led to that change is the changing nature of the pandemic,” said Health Officer Kim Berg. “So it’s not (the case) that we’re always going to be at capacity. When we’re not at capacity, public health will be doing our job and contacting people. When we are at capacity and can no longer do (that), our partners in the community will be assisting with that. We wanted to be able to ebb and flow with the pandemic. And I think the wording before was just a little limiting in who we would be contacting.”
Household contacts and congregate settings will be the top priorities for providing information if people are deemed close contacts, in accordance with CDC guidance. The Health Department will also work with employers and businesses to assist with contact tracing while protecting personal information.
All close contacts will be issued the quarantine recommendation, regardless of vaccination status. These changes are due to House Bill 702, which prohibits discrimination based on vaccine status.
Despite the termination of quarantine orders, Berg says people that spread COVID-19 through the community could be held personally liable if they do not follow recommendations they are issued.
“Based off the guidance from the state health department, we can also reiterate to them in our conversation, that if they choose to knowingly not follow the CDC guidelines and recommendations, they are open to personal liability if they spread COVID-19 throughout our community,” Berg said. “Because they have knowingly been exposed and they are going against the public health recommendation.”
During the meeting, Berg expressed concern that the County continues to see a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases that her Department is struggling to keep up with. She says there are over 100 close contacts they are following from Monday alone.
“We are at a point this year, where we are at five times the rate of cases than we were (at this point) last year. It’s going to be a bad year. It’s going to be a bad fall. Because a lot of the efforts that we had in place and we had the power to put in place are no longer there. So we’re trying to do the best we can. We’re trying to protect the community as best we can. And I think that by continuing, we’re following CDC guidelines, because CDC is who has the science and that is where we get our information from. And that’s what we’re continuing to do. It goes against our guidance to quarantine and isolate every single person if they are fully vaccinated. They took that step and they chose to do it. A lot of people (got vaccinated) so they wouldn’t be quarantined. And I’ve had that voiced to me before. We have a hard time going against the guidance that we’ve followed this entire pandemic and my entire public health career. The 11 years I’ve been here, that’s who we looked to for guidance. So it’s a hard situation. The reality of it is we are struggling already at the Health Department.”
Last year at this time, Hill County had 11.27 new cases per day per 100,000 people. Over the last week, that number is at 58 per day per 100,000, and Berg says that number will likely continue to rise.
Berg says another concern she has is the increased need for COVID-19 testing, as they are getting close to the point they they will not have the time to test everyone who needs it.
“Luckily, we have testing available in some of those larger employers. So MSU-Northern has testing that they are able to accomodate their students and staff, and hopefully some of their families. Havre Public Schools have testing, too. But they’re already almost at capacity as well. So our testing is possibly going to get limited.”
With the changes, Berg is urging the community to do their part to slow the spread of COVID-19 now that the Health Department is limited.
“The reality is a lot of the public health mitigation efforts have been undone,” Berg told the press after the meeting. “We can’t put certain things in place that we could prior. The cases are increasing at a very rapid rate right now. I think a lot of people just wanted it to be gone and are kind of in denial that it’s not gone. And we kind of have to move back and nobody wants to move back, which I understand completely. I don’t want to move back either. But taking those precautions and staying home when you’re sick and not going to large gatherings, wearing a mask when you’re not able to social distance indoors, is all very important and can help slow that spread.”
Berg says that one positive development is that the rate of people getting vaccinated is increasing. 55 percent of the eligible population has received at least one COVID-19 vaccine, while around 49 percent are fully vaccinated.
“We do have our higher risk population from last year pretty well immunized. So our 65 and older, we’re looking at about 70-to-75 percent vaccination rate. The issue with the new (delta) variant that we are seeing predominantly is that it is affecting younger people, and they are getting sicker…One silver lining that we’ve seen in Hill County is over the last two months, our population of 12-to-17 year olds has gone from about 20 percent vaccinated to 43 percent fully vaccinated. Which is a huge jump and really positive. And we’re still seeing people come in weekly for those shots. So we’ll continue to climb as much as we can, and getting more people vaccinated is the number one step to slowing the spread of it.”
She says her goal is to increase the number of eligible residents fully vaccinated to 70 percent, but that is still a ways away.
“I would say (we get there through) education. And if you have questions on the vaccine, call and ask us questions. I don’t expect people to blindly follow and get it without the information that they want. The vaccines are safe.”
COVID-19 vaccinations are available at your local health department, Northern Montana Hospital, and many pharmacies in the region.
