Two Rivers Public Health seeing decrease in cases from previous week

KEARNEY, Neb. (KSNB) - Two Rivers Public Health Department updated the weekly risk dial Thursday. The dial remains unchanged from the previous week, as it stays in the ‘severe’ (red) zone.

In the district, 736 cases of COVID-19 were recorded in TRPHD between Jan. 26 - Feb. 1. This means, the number of new cases dropped 38% from the week before. Despite the decrease in positive cases, the weekly case rates are still more than double the previous six month average.

The overall test positivity rate is more than 20% — the first time since Nov. 2020 that over 1/5 of all tests came back positive.

Dr. Aravind Menon, epidemiologist for TRPHD said, the decrease in case numbers could be from lack of positive cases on the record.

”This is the first week of declining cases, there are caveats, a lot of people are testing at home, a lot of those home tests don’t really make it into the the state system,” he said. “The state has also readjusted its database so that a lot of people who’ve tested positive twice within the past six months are counted only once.”

As of Feb. 1, slightly over 51% of the overall population of TRPHD has gotten at least one of their doses of the vaccine. Of the vaccinated persons in the district, 42% had also received booster shots, including 75% of residents over 70 years old. TRPHD noted, unvaccinated people have a significantly higher risk of serious illness or even hospitalization following infection.

As of Tuesday morning, there were four ICU beds available and medical/surgery bed availability was over 40% for the first time in a month across the district.

COVID testing is available Mondays and Wednesdays 9:30AM - 12:30PM at the Buffalo County Fairgrounds in Kearney . Registration is required for testing. To schedule an appointment, you can visit this website: https://login.registermytime.com/tw/2rphd.

TRPHD encourages all unvaccinated, vaccine-eligible residents to get their COVID vaccination through their healthcare provider, pharmacy or through the district. A list of vaccination clinics in the area can be found by visiting: https://www.trphd.org/covid-19/event-calendar.html.

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