Douglas County Health Director Concerned About New COVID Wave in Europe

Douglas County’s top health official said Tuesday she’s seeing another spike in local COVID-19 cases and is also tracking an explosion of new cases in Europe.

Health Director Dr. Lindsay Huse told Douglas County Commissioners there has been an increase in new cases and hospitalizations are creeping back up, similar to the ups and downs the state has seen several times during the pandemic. Douglas County’s positivity rate has also jumped about a percentage point since last week, to 9.6%. Dr. Huse said she’s keeping an eye on other parts of the world too.

“Europe is seeing a huge spike in cases currently, I would say rivaling the spike in cases that occurred a year ago at this time of year,” Huse said. “What’s happening in Europe is something that we watch very closely here as our trends oftentimes will tend to follow about four to six weeks later.”

She said the good news is Douglas County has started vaccinating kids 5-11 years old this week, with planned vaccine clinics for that age group already nearly booked. So far, 70% of Douglas County residents 12 and older have been fully vaccinated.

“I think that the vaccine is going to be our best tool for blunting whatever spike might be coming and I think that until we get there we have to still continue to keep our guard up and make sure that we’re doing all of those other things that we know are effective for preventing COVID-19 from spreading in our communities,” she said.

Ten people died of COVID last week in Douglas County, bringing the county’s total to 838 deaths so far during the pandemic.