Weekly COVID-19 Round-up - 11/4/21

River City Data No. 55

First, the big happy feels - early yesterday morning, I was able to get my daughter an appointment for her first COVID-19 vaccination on Sunday. She is one of the over 28 million kiddos newly eligible to get a two-shot series from Pfizer. We have excellent data that the vaccines are safe and effective. But, we know from this latest wave of cases that COVID is not safe for kids. Just tonight, we have ten pediatric patients, five of whom are under twelve, in St. Louis hospitals. Three of the five under twelve are in a pediatric ICU.

Getting Miss C (as folks who follow me on Twitter may know her as) vaccinated is vital for her health, and it’s crucial for our health too. Moreover, it is essential for our neighbors’ health in St. Louis. The more vaccinated kids, the safer schools will be. As a result, we’ll be able to travel for winter break with less anxiety and see family, including Miss C’s great-grandmother, with an extra layer of safety. They’re going to get their first hug in nearly two years.

And then tonight, I came across the trailer for “The First Wave.” I was not prepared for the emotions that it brought out. One of my first thoughts was when Miss C (five at the time) told us, a month or two into the pandemic, that she had a plan to take care of herself and us if both my wife and I got sick. It was one thing for my wife to have sorted out a plan, which we had, but quite another for Miss C to do it unprompted.

After watching the trailer, getting her vaccinated feels all the more critical. It’s another piece of insurance against going back to that place all of us were in by April 2020. The trailer reminded me just how much all of us, but especially kids like Miss C, gave up in those first few months and how much we have asked of them since. Vaccines feel like they are about making good on those sacrifices they have made. So, if you’re a parent, I hope you join us in getting your child vaccinated, too. - Chris

---

COVID-19 by the Numbers

Total cases in MO: 875,380 (+7,116 from last Thursday)

7-day average of new cases per day in MO: 1,016.57 (+29.57 from last Thursday)

Counties with the highest per capita rates (per 100,000) of new cases per day this past week:
Lewis (58.41 per 100,000), Scotland (55.42), Holt (48.09), Perry (47.75), Osage (43.01), Sullivan (38.45), Cole (37.42), Miller (37.07), and Gasconade (35.85)

Total deaths in MO: 12,912 (+165 from last Thursday)

7-day average of new deaths per day in MO: 23.57 (+9.86 from last Thursday)

Percent of all Missourians initiating vaccination: at least 51% (+1% from last Thursday)

Percent of all Missourians completing vaccination: at least 46% (+1% from last Thursday)

Case and mortality numbers are current as of Wednesday, November 3rd. Vaccination numbers are current as of Thursday, November 4th. Additional statistics, maps, and plots are available on my COVID-19 tracking site.

---

Trends in the Past Week

At a high level, things look relatively similar in Missouri right now. Case rates have fluctuated for two weeks now, around 1,000 new cases per day on average. That fluctuation has ever so slightly crept up over the past few days, primarily due to case counts in the state’s St. Louis and “Outstate” areas.

Below the surface, however, we have seen some shifts at the county level. A couple of areas continue to rise to the surface, including in some southeastern and northern counties. There are two new areas to watch, however - some Mid-Missouri counties and counties around Lake of the Ozarks.

I want to start in the Cape Girardeau area, where Perry County has seen rates steadily climb over the past few weeks. Perry County was one of the original sites of rural COVID-19 outbreaks back in the early days of the pandemic here. That said, Perry County is a regional outlier. I am heartened to see declines in Bollinger, Cape Girardeau, and Iron counties. Ideally, we see Perry’s trajectory follow them soon.

In Northeastern Missouri, there are a couple of counties to watch. Scotland County, which has had one of the highest rates of new cases in Missouri at several points recently, is seeing yet another spike. Lewis County, which has the highest rate of new cases right now, has seen minimal variation over the past week. Finally, given the slow, steady increase in new cases, I am watching Marion County, though rates remain low.

In Northwestern Missouri, we have a new set of patterns - jumps in new cases in Atchison, Daviess, Gentry, Harrison, Holt, Nodaway, and Worth counties. They vary in magnitude to a degree, with Holt’s increase the most severe right now.

A similar pattern is playing out in several Mid-Missouri counties, particularly Callaway, Cole, Gasconade, Moniteau, and Osage counties. Further south, around the Lake of the Ozarks, Miller County is experiencing an identical jump.

I have to say that I am a bit suspicious of these spikes in Mid-Missouri and Northwest Missouri. If these immediately fall back to baseline, the likely culprit is a testing provider reporting back results. We saw this before, with an Illinois-based testing provider who dropped hundreds of cases for Northwestern counties in a way that made it seem like a regional outbreak was unfolding. Given the similarity of the patterns and the near-identical timing in these two parts of Missouri right now, I am worried that we are seeing noise related to back cases and not some new regional outbreak. I’ll be sure to check back in on these two areas in next week’s newsletter.