COVID-19 Forecast for El Paso County — Feb. 1
Plus, our resident microbiologist on the new variant from South Africa
Good morning, and happy Monday. On this pre-pandemic date in 2019, the Fine Arts Center at Colorado College hosted a stand-up special with Nancy Norton, the first woman to win the Boston Comedy Festival. (This year, the FAC is putting on virtual programming for the theatre and Bemis School of Art).
Today, Phoebe Lostroh returns to give her weekly COVID-19 forecast for El Paso County and to explain Gov. Polis’ latest update to Colorado’s vaccine distribution plan. 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, leaders from CC’s Residential Experience explained the spring move in process, and residential advisers talked about enforcing COVID-19 policies. Plus, one CC club discussed how they tackled climate anxiety through a book group.
📚 Learn: This spring, Lostroh is teaching several online classes through the Pillar Institute under the theme “Vaccines and Medications for COVID-19” for a general audience. Check out her Facebook post to learn more.
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 Jan. 30.
⚖️ How her predictions last week shaped up: Jan. 30 is the last day of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report week 4 in the national public health calendar. It is the 47th week since the first case was detected in El Paso County. Since March 13, 697 El Paso County residents have died of COVID-19. Last week, Lostroh predicted between 463 and 1,061 new cases in El Paso County for the week ending Jan. 28. There were actually 901 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, while the best case is a linear fit based on data for the last 14 days. If the trend of declining new cases continues, Lostroh predicts El Paso County will see 446-886 new cases for the week ending Feb. 4. If an exponential increase of the virus resumes, the count for this week could be more than 930 new cases, Lostroh said.
Rolling 14-day incidence per 100,000 people in El Paso County with predictions
🗝️ Key points: The actual calculated incidence are shown with black Xs. The orange and red lines at the top of the graph show when El Paso County had orange or red-level safety precautions in effect. The red, orange, yellow, and blue-dotted lines at the bottom of the graph show the thresholds for those incidence levels. The dotted black lines show trajectories of decreasing incidence that did not continue. The rolling 14-day cumulative incidence for El Paso County is 268 cases per 100,000 people.
“The post-holiday spike in incidence delayed us achieving the orange-level of incidence by 21 days, resulting in 208 hospitalizations and 74 deaths. If we had gotten to the orange zone sooner, during those 21 days about 73 fewer neighbors would have been hospitalized; about 26 fewer would have died,” Lostroh said.
COVID-19 hospitalizations in El Paso County.
🗝️Key points: Daily new hospitalizations are plotted on the left in blue and the regional COVID-19 hospitalization census is reported on the right in red. Lostroh said the most recent reliable data for new hospitalizations in El Paso County are from Jan. 25, while the most recent reliable census data are from Jan. 28. There were 45 new hospitalizations between Jan. 20-26, and the regional hospital census for COVID-19 inpatients was 71 people.
COVID-19 vaccinations in El Paso County
🗝️ Key points: The vaccine dashboard tracks county vaccine distribution. Blue symbols correspond to the left axis, plotting administered doses. Red symbols correspond to the right axis, plotting completed vaccine series. El Paso County has administered a total of 48,412 doses. Some of those doses were the first shot someone received, while others were the second shot to complete the vaccine series. 11,389 people have received both shots and thus have completed the immunization series. The population of El Paso County is about 722,565, so the percent of the population that is immune to most variants of SARS-CoV-2 is about 1.5%, Lostroh said.
To contact providers to find out how you can get vaccinated, see the county website. There are active clinical trials in Colorado Springs recruiting adults to be part of testing the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine. The state plans to start vaccinating new populations, such as K-12 teachers and Coloradans ages 65 and older, on February 8.
Q-and-A with Lostroh: Our resident microbiologist on mass-vaccination events
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
CC COVID-19 Reporting Project: On Jan. 28, two cases of the coronavirus variant known as B1.351, which was first detected in South Africa, were reported by public health officials in South Carolina. This marks the first time the more-contagious variant appeared in the United States. What worries you most about this variant over others?
Lostroh: The South African variant has multiple mutations, several of which change the amino acid sequence of the spike protein. So, all proteins are strings of amino acids hooked together in a particular order that’s determined by the genetic code that programs the cellular ribosome machine to synthesize that protein. And in this particular case, the changes to the spike protein just changed the shape and the chemistry of the surface of the spike protein, such that it can still attach to our H2 receptors and get inside and infect them, but the antibodies that are generated in response to the old spike protein don’t have those changes. They do not bind very well to the virus spike. It’s changing the surface where the spike needs to interact with the ACE protein in such a way that it escapes from an immune response to the ancestral versions of the coronavirus, and yet still allows that virus to attach to our host cells and get in. It could certainly lead to more re-infections and that is definitely a concern. If someone has already mounted an immune response against the ancestral variant and then gets infected with this one, their old immune response may be less effective and allow them to be infected again.
CCRP: Last Friday, Gov. Polis announced that the state would begin vaccinating educators and Coloradans ages 65 and older on Feb 8. How will this expansion affect the way schools reopen for the spring semester, and to what extent do you worry about vaccine availability for eligible populations that have not yet received the vaccine?
Lostroh: I’m super glad about the teachers getting vaccinated. I think it will change things for schools being able to remain open. It will mean that our teacher shortage will have less of an impact on the ability for some of us to still have classes at all. You know there were times in the fall when everybody had to go home and quarantine and there weren’t any substitute teachers — and so then what do you do from there? It’s really a difficult problem because we don’t have a vast abundance of K-12 teachers in Colorado or as far as I know anywhere in this country. It’s a noble profession that does not pay well, so it’s not a good situation. I think that the impact of not having class for K-12 has a huge impact on the development of younger children. I think it’s having huge mental health impacts that are negative on even teenagers. And I think that having K-12 facilities closed has a huge detrimental negative economic impact because some families are in a position where they usually have two earners, and they’re making do with their two earners. When the schools close, one of the earners has to take care of those kids, there’s just no other option. So, I think the economic benefits of opening those K-12 schools are worth the cost–benefit risk for the minority of over-70 population that will not yet have had the vaccine.
CCRP: Colorado is hosting an appointment only, mass-vaccination event at Coors Field this weekend. How effective do you think mass-vaccination events will be, and what are some health and safety considerations for large events like this?
Lostroh: Mass-vaccine campaigns have been very successful throughout the history of the United States (there’s amazing pictures of polio mass vaccination.) So, I think it’s a good thing that they’re doing the mass vaccination. The health problems that could occur would be if someone’s in their car driving through, and they’re asked to wait 15 minutes, and what if they have an anaphylactic reaction at 22 minutes, you know, instead of 15? I’m a little concerned that there could be some people who are at risk of having an allergic reaction, who will not necessarily be caught by those 15 minutes. I assume that they ask you, ‘do you have any serious allergies, especially against X, Y and Z?’ If you do, they probably tell you to pull your car over into a different lot and wait a half an hour instead of 15 minutes. So I actually think that’s okay. I think there’s not very many health risks, but in situations where people are lining up and waiting in line, the health risks associated with that are of course exposure to COVID-19. But also, I’ve seen some stories about senior citizens waiting in line for hours with nowhere to sit, with no shelter, with no water. When you’re talking about populations that are already vulnerable, you want to make sure that there’s a safe place for them to be and that there are bathrooms and things like that. So, for most people, not having a bathroom is not a severe health risk, but it sure makes things much less comfortable, not everybody can stand for two hours or however long it takes. And so I think that kind of mass vaccination is a little insensitive. But my experience with those mass vaccinations is that they’re happening in emergency situations. I think this last week in Seattle, a freezer went down, and they just blasted the city and were like ‘okay, everybody hop online and make your appointment for now to 2 a.m. because we’ve got to vaccinate you all now before this stuff goes bad,’ and they did. So, I think for the most part, the mass vaccination sites are going to be these sites for cars, which then leaves out people who don’t have cars. So that’s a problem.
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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