Health Department encourages safety as COVID cases rise
Aug. 18—COVID-19 cases are on the rise in Cass County and the Cass County Health Department is urging residents to remember basic precautions to stay healthy.
"If you're sick you still need to be wearing a mask," Cass County Health Department Administrator Serenity Alter said. "You need to be handwashing and kind of going back to that (COVID protocol)."
Cass County reported 18 new cases on August 17, but Alter said the numbers are likely misleading because many people never report that they are positive for COVID.
"When people test from home, they are not reporting it in. I'm sure that it's a lot higher than 18," she said. "You can do a home test, but then you need to let us know that you're positive. ... We need to know if it gets out of control or if there's any kind of mitigation that needs to take place."
The health department has also seen an increase in COVID testing. At-home tests sometimes show false negatives, so Alter recommends waiting at least a day after symptoms appear to get tested. She said taking an additional test at least a day after the first can help reduce the chances of testing too early or receiving a false negative.
"Sometimes it might take a couple (days)," she said. "I've talked to a couple of people who were negative the first two tests, then they took another one and were positive. I would continue to quarantine or isolate while you're waiting on your test results."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently changed its quarantine guidelines. Now, people who test positive for COVID are required to quarantine for five days and wear a mask for an additional five days.
Alter said it is important to understand that the five day quarantine typically begins the day after receiving a positive test.
"The day that your symptoms start is day zero, so the following day would be day one," she said. "A lot of people think that if they started getting sick on Thursday, that's day one. But it's not like that."
Cass County residents who test positive for COVID are reporting symptoms like backaches, fevers, coughing, other cold symptoms, headaches, and gastrointestinal issues like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
Alter said backaches are a fairly new COVID symptom. She heard multiple people who tested positive over the past few weeks say they woke up with backaches the day before the rest of their symptoms appeared. Most of the other symptoms have been widely reported throughout the pandemic.
She added that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people have been contracting COVID and encouraged people to stay up to date on their vaccinations.
Both the Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax vaccines are two-dose shots. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved up to two additional booster shots for those drugs. The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is a single dose and has also been approved for booster shots.
"I do recommend that people who aren't updated on their boosters go ahead and get a booster or call us," Alter said.
The health department requires appointments, but people can schedule at https://scheduling.coronavirus.in.gov/Invitation by choosing the "I do not have a code" option and clicking on "Smith St. Cass Co."
