HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – The Hill County Health Board met virtually on Friday afternoon to provide their weekly COVID-19 update.
Health Officer Kim Larson says they have brought on five temporary contact tracers to their staff in the past week or so, allowing them to keep up with the case load.
“We have been keeping up lately. And that helps a lot with our numbers going down. We haven’t had a lot of cases that have had a large number of contacts, which is a positive in what we want to see, because we know we’re not going to avoid all cases, but if people are doing their part, they won’t have a lot of close contacts, and that helps a lot with that.”
There are currently 111 Hill County residents in quarantine after being identified as close contacts to positive cases. This does not include those being monitored by the Rocky Boy Health Center or anyone refusing to use the Sara Alert service.
Cases in Hill County remain down from record highs in October and November.
“Our numbers are going down. Knock on wood, I’m a little superstitious, but I think it’s a real positive. I think our community should be happy about that. We just have to keep it up and keep those numbers going down. But we’re looking good for the last couple weeks.”
Larson contributes the decreased numbers to people doing a better job of avoiding large gatherings, social distancing, and wearing masks in public.
COVID-19 Vaccine
The first shipments of the Pfizer vaccine in Montana are scheduled for next week, but the Hi-Line won’t see any of them, as they are being reserved for Health Care workers in the seven largest Montana cities.
Larson says when the Moderna vaccine is authorized for use, potentially later this month, it will likely be shipped to more rural areas of Montana because it does not have the same requirements to be kept in extremely cold temperatures, and it comes in smaller shipments.
The local long-term care and assisted living facilities in our area are being taken care of by CVS, which is expected to be providing the first doses of the vaccine for them by the end of the year.
Hill County could be getting a shipment of vaccines by the end of the year, which will be reserved primarily for Health Care workers.
Larson says the community-at-large should expect to be able to get vaccinations sometime in the spring.
“We (will) set up our point of distribution and get our community through in as timely a fashion as possible without exposure to each other and everything like that. We have started planning for that. We’ve done that for our influenza vaccine in the past.”
Larson says that as that time nears, her Department will be working on ways to educate the public on the vaccine.
Health Officer Order
Larson says the Health Officer order that went into place on November 5th was allowed to expire, in large part because the Governor’s recent directives essentially mimic the order.
“It took it a little bit further with the closing time of certain establishments. So we are currently under the Governor’s order.”
