Olmsted County Public Health: Covid-19 hospitalizations remain stable

Olmsted County health officials cited an encouraging piece of data in the fight against Covid-19 Monday, as Minnesota sees its hospitalization numbers fall to its lowest level in almost a month.

Meaghan Sherden, the lead epidemiologist for Olmsted County Public Health, says Olmsted County’s hospitalization rate has remained stable around 10 percent for the past few weeks, just under Minnesota’s statewide hospitalization rate of 12 percent. The news comes after the Minnesota Department of Health released new numbers Monday, noting 452 Minnesotans are currently in the hospital because of Covid-19 — the lowest number since May 12.

With more businesses allowed to open Wednesday, including gyms, bowling alleys and movie theaters, Sherden says it will be important to remember social distancing and face covering guidelines. From a public health perspective, the department will have to track the spread of Covid-19 from place to place as best they can.

“As we’re starting to open up and interact more, we just need to have the best sense possible of where people are at and who they’ve been interacting with, so we can continue to be as proactive as we’ve been over the past few months,” said Sherden.

Sherden said the stabilization of Olmsted County’s hospitalization rates is thanks, in part, to the county’s robust contact tracing system, making sure those exposed to a known Covid-19 case are alerted to stay home and prevent further exposure to others. 

“Regardless if someone is showing symptoms, they’re being reached out to,” said Sherden. “It’s just about planting the seed for them to be watching out for symptoms. The earlier someone knows what’s going on, the more proactive they can be, so potentially it doesn't turn into a hospitalization.”

As the state and county flesh out their testing capabilities (with over 10,000 tests being completed each day in Minnesota for the past five days), the ability now exists for local testing sites to accept some asymptomatic patients. Sherden says anyone who attended a protest in the past week should be able to receive a Covid-19 test, as a result of recent updates in policy from Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center. 

She added any person seeking a test should reach out to their provider beforehand — especially those asymptomatic protestors — to make sure they qualify.

“We haven’t talked a lot about [tests for protestors] because there will still be kinks in the system,” Sherden said. “They [Mayo and OMC] had to change a couple things, but we definitely want people to know that it’s available.”

As of this writing, Olmsted County has reported 722 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 12 deaths. Minnesota has reported 28,224 confirmed cases and 1,197 deaths, about 80 percent of which have come from long-term care facilities.

Isaac Jahns is a Rochester native and a 2019 graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism. He reports on politics, business and music for Med City Beat.