COVID-19 Forecast for El Paso County — April 12
Plus, our resident microbiologist on the vaccination rate in Colorado
Good morning, and happy Monday. On this pandemic date last year, the department of comparative literature announced the college’s upcoming world literature minor. (This year, the department began teaching classes for the minor, with one course taking place in Block 5 and another planned for Block C of the Summer Session.)
Today, Phoebe Lostroh returns to give her weekly COVID-19 forecast for El Paso County and to explain the fourth wave of the coronavirus in Colorado. Lostroh is a professor of molecular biology at Colorado College on scholarly leave who is serving as the program director in Genetic Mechanisms, Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the National Science Foundation.
➡️ICYMI: On Wednesday, we explained the housing plan for next academic year and how some students feel about it. Also, how some student workers were eligible to get vaccinated before other students.
🚨Sign up for CC’s on-campus vaccination clinic: If you’re a member of the CC community and you haven’t been vaccinated yet, please remember to sign up for the vaccination clinic on campus before April 14 to ensure that there will be enough doses for everyone.
Phoebe’s Forecasts
NOTES: These forecasts represent her own opinion and not necessarily those of the National Science Foundation or Colorado College. She used the public El Paso County dashboard for all data. Lostroh prepared these forecasts on April 9.
⚖️ How her predictions last week shaped up: April 10 is the last day of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report week 14 in the national public health calendar. It is the 57th week since the first case was detected in El Paso County. Since March 13, 760 El Paso County residents have died of COVID-19. Last week, Lostroh predicted between 1,363 and 1,651 new cases in El Paso County for the week ending April 8. There were actually 1,459 cases.
Cumulative reported cases in El Paso County with predictions
🗝️ Key points: Reported cases are in black circles while the other symbols provide estimates based on curve-fitting. The high, middle, and low estimates are based on exponential curve-fitting to the most recent seven, 14, and 21 days, respectively. For the week ending April 15, Lostroh predicts 1,344-1,470 new cases in El Paso County.
Rolling seven-day incidence per 100,000 people in El Paso County with predictions
🗝️ Key points: The actual calculated incidence is in black Xs, while the other symbols provide estimates based on curve-fitting for the most recent 21, 14, and seven days. The red, orange, yellow, and blue lines show when El Paso County had red, orange, and yellow safety precautions in effect, and when the 5 Star State Certification Program went into effect. The orange, yellow and blue-dotted lines show the thresholds for the new Dial 3.0 levels. As of April 11, the incidence per 100,000 people in El Paso County over the last seven days was 181.7.
“Incidence has been rising steadily for about three and a half weeks and correlates with relaxing safety precautions,” Lostroh said.
Seven-day rolling percent positivity compared with daily percent positivity in El Paso County
🗝️ Key points: The seven-day rolling percent positivity for nasopharyngeal tests for viral nucleic acids is plotted in dark blue diamonds, while the daily percent positivity is plotted in light blue diamonds. The timing of red, orange, yellow, and blue-level safety precautions is indicated by the red, orange, and yellow-dotted lines. As of April 11, the percent positivity in El Paso County was 7.1%.
COVID-19 vaccination in El Paso County
🗝️ Key points: The El Paso County vaccine dashboard tracks county vaccine distribution. Purple symbols correspond to the left axis, plotting doses administered, while red symbols correspond to the right axis, plotting vaccine series completed. El Paso County has administered a total of 312,641 doses. Some of those doses were the first shot someone received, while others were the second shot to complete the vaccine series. 125,648 people have received both shots and thus have completed the immunization series.
Q-and-A with Lostroh: Our resident microbiologist on the retirement of Colorado’s COVID-19 dial
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
CC COVID-19 Reporting Project: With COVID-19 cases on the rise in Colorado, some public health officials have said that the state may be facing a “fourth wave” of the pandemic. To what extent do you agree with that assessment?
Lostroh: Well, when I look at our numbers for this week our cases are up, hospitalizations are up and percent positivity is up. So we are at the beginning of the fourth wave for sure, I think it’s here. We should be much more cautious than we are being. I think people who think that we are mostly through this are very optimistic about vaccine compliance, and I’m not sure that I am that optimistic about vaccine compliance yet. I wish I were. I’m very concerned that we are going to get to a point where the populations who want to be vaccinated have been vaccinated and the people who are refusing vaccination are going to be hard to reach. It is absolutely true that the case fatality rate is lower, but I don’t think people are respecting the many things that can go wrong from COVID-19 besides dying. So it really is not a good choice to just give up and be willing to get exposed after being vaccinated. Some of the variants are making people more sick than they once did. I really feel strongly that maintaining the ability to implement safety precautions on a statewide level so that people can’t make choices that really put lots of people in danger is important.
CCRP: Last Friday, Gov. Jared Polis said that after Colorado’s color-coded COVID-19 dial system is retired, cities and counties would be responsible for pandemic safety restrictions. To what extent do you think this is a good time to abolish the dial?
Lostroh: I would argue that it’s not wise to retire the dial until 75% of people are vaccinated, so I don’t understand why we’re doing that, other than political expediency. I’m really so disappointed in local and state public health officials for not standing up for health, and for spreading the false message that now that case fatality rate is down, there’s really nothing else to worry about. It’s just not the case. We really need to stop viral evolution, and like I said before, 10-30% of people who get COVID even if they may not have been hospitalized will have complications and long-term effects that last much longer than just a week or two. So, I’m almost speechless that people in public health would agree to comply with the pressure to drop the safety precautions and put all of the responsibility for remaining safe on individuals instead of collective responsibility.
CCRP: You mentioned that you don’t think it’s wise to retire the dial until 75% of Colorado’s population is vaccinated — if that’s the case, when should the dial be lifted?
Lostroh: If I extend the line for our current vaccination rate, you see that at the current rate of vaccination in Colorado, everyone will have had one shot around September, and everyone will be fully vaccinated around January, if the same rate continues. But of course this week a story was published about some Johnson & Johnson vaccines that caused some side effects, I think at the Dick’s Sporting Goods vaccination site here in town. So, it is normal when you are engaging in a massive logistical undertaking like distributing and giving out these vaccines, things will go wrong. There’s just no way to be perfect all the time. So I think that the rate of vaccination that we have now is pretty close to the rate of vaccination that we are going to have. We’re doing a really good job, and it’s hard to do an even better job because nobody’s perfect, and we have limited capacity in things like that.
About the CC COVID-19 Reporting Project
The CC COVID-19 Reporting Project is created by Colorado College student journalists Esteban Candelaria, Lorea Zabaleta, and Cameron Howell in partnership with The Catalyst, Colorado College’s student newspaper. Work by Phoebe Lostroh, Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at CC and National Science Foundation Program Director in Genetic Mechanisms, Molecular and Cellular Biosciences, will appear from time to time.
The project seeks to provide frequent updates about CC and other higher education institutions during the pandemic by providing original reporting, analysis, interviews with campus leaders, and context about what state and national headlines mean for the CC community.
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