Few hospitalizations result from small uptick in Covid-19 cases
Melissa Pfeifle, a pharmacist with Kalispell Regional Healthcare, prepares Covid-19 vaccines during a clinic at the Flathead County Fairgrounds in Kalispell in this Feb. 12,2021, file photo. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
The Flathead City-County Health Department has seen a slight uptick in Covid-19 cases reported to them in the past few months.
The department recorded 21 cases in May, followed by 13 in June and 49 in July. So far for the month of August, 21 cases have been reported.
However, the numbers might not reflect the true number of cases in the county, as some people might go untested or not report their positive test, the health department’s Population Health Supervisor Malia Freeman said in an email.
Despite this spike, Logan Health has not seen an increase in hospitalizations.
Logan Health Senior Marketing Coordinator Chris Leopold said the hospital's infection prevention coordinator has reported consistently low hospitalizations. However, he said with the UK currently seeing an increase in hospitalizations, Logan Health is anticipating the potential for Montana to follow global trends.
The BMJ medical trade journal on Aug. 8 reported an increase in hospital admissions across England due to Covid-19 with experts saying waning immunity combined with a rise in indoor activities likely as the cause.
Locally, Freeman said there was a similar increase in cases in both June and July of last year. There are a lot of different factors that can affect the spread of viruses, so there is no way to definitively attribute the spike to any one cause, she noted.
People ages 6 months and older are eligible to receive Covid-19 vaccines. People who received the original Covid-19 vaccine and initial boosters are eligible to receive a bivalent booster, which contains protection against the original strains of Covid-19 and the omicron strains that are active in the area right now.
People who are 65 and older are eligible to receive a second bivalent booster at least four months after their initial bivalent booster. For more information, contact the Community Health Services at Flathead City-County Health Department at 406-751-8110.
Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com.