Local health officials say COVID-19 cases are declining in Hillsdale County.
According to the Branch-Hillsdale-St. Joseph Community Health Agency, Jan. 26 brought 77 new cases, Feb. 2 brought 54 new cases, and Feb. 14 brought 11 new cases.
Rachel Lott, director of marketing at Hillsdale Hospital, contrasted these numbers to those in the fall.
“We are fortunate and grateful that not as many people are hospitalized as were in the fall,” she said. “We are admitting five to seven patients a day, whereas in the fall, we admitted about 15 a day.”
Lott did not directly attribute the spike and fall in cases combined with lower hospitalizations to the Omicron varient, but said it’s possible.
“At the hospital level, we can’t determine which variant a patient has,” Lott said. “We can always speculate, but we don’t know for sure. We are seeing lower hospitalization rates, which could be related to Omicron.”
Lott explained that variant diagnosis is done at the state level, meaning that local hospitals do not know the variant in every case.
In order to determine what variant a patient has, labs have to do additional testing, Lott said.
“This means they are sequencing to see what genome of the virus the patient has,” Lott said. “That doesn’t happen with every test, so we aren’t being told who has Omicron.”
Despite the decline in hospitalizations, Lott said healthcare workers are exhausted after the past two years of the pandemic.
“Our healthcare workers are still overwhelmed because of the totality of everything we’ve experienced with the pandemic,” she said. “We are not overwhelmed with cases, but the pandemic has been overwhelming for our healthcare workers.
The hospital is still providing COVID-19 tests and advocating for the community to get vaccinated.
“We have self-collection PCR test kits available for free that can be picked up from our Respiratory Collection Center at Three Meadows Medical Building,” Lott said. “They take the kit, do their own swab and return it to the Respiratory Collection Center. If the test is dropped off before 3 p.m., it will be ready within roughly 24 hours.”
The hospital offers vaccinations, and nurses can provide vaccinations at home.
“For vaccination, we have weekly clinics available from 1 to 3 p.m. at the hospital in the Annex building. Registration is not required, but preferred,” Lott said. “ We also have a nurse who is available to give confidential, in-home vaccinations for those who would like to be vaccinated privately or who are home-bound.”
Mayor Adam Stockford said he distances himself from the details of the pandemic in order to focus on other responsibilities.
“To be frank,” Stockford said, “at this point paying attention to it is a distraction from what I was elected to do, fix streets and make Hillsdale business-friendly.”
Stockford encouraged community members to continue taking individual responsibility for their health.
“If residents are looking for advice from an elected official about their health,” Stockford said, “which I hope they’re not because I’m unqualified, I would tell them to be cautious always, take responsibility for your own health, wash your hands, eat healthy, and exercise.”
Stockford said that he will focus on his responsibilities as mayor, leaving the COVID-19 responsibilities to medical professionals.
“Our stance at the city will remain what it has been,” Stockford said. “We will continue to focus on keeping things as normal as possible and attempting to mitigate the damage that’s been done by our state and federal officials.”
