Columbia health officials say it could be a week before impact of health order can be tracked
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
As the Columbia City Council is set to give the health director the "ok" to extend the current health order, leaders say it will be about a week to know if it had any impact on COVID-19 cases.
Boone County has been seeing large spikes in cases of the virus. On Saturday, 221 new cases of COVID-19 were reported, shattering the previous record. On Sunday, 67 cases were reported.
The current health order restricting bars and restaurants from selling alcohol past 9 p.m. and making them close at 10 p.m. went into effect August 28. It is set to expire on September 17.
Assistant Director of the Columbia/Boone County Health Department Scott Clardy said he thinks those who are testing positive likely contracted the virus before the order went into effect.
"I think we need to wait at least a week or so before we are even able to determine if that order is effective or not," Clardy said. "If not, then what is it we need to be doing differently to make an impact."
While the city council will vote on allowing the health director to extend the order, that does not mean that is will automatically be extended. Clardy said they have not talked about modifying the order, because officials are waiting to see if it has been effective.
But as people travel for Labor Day weekend, he said that may cause more delays in understanding how impactful the current order has been.
"That's kinda throwing a wrench in our work," Clardy said. "We were hoping to be able to tell whether the order itself worked in the next week or two, but the fact the people could have gone all kinds of places... we could continue to see more cases as a result of that."
He said he wouldn't be surprised if large spikes in cases continue for the week, because they are still seeing cases coming from before the new order was put in place.
"It gets discouraging to continue to see cases rise," Clardy said. "But when you step back and look at what has occurred as far as, we know there was some non-compliance with the health order, it's not surprising."
Clardy said they have seen good compliance from businesses following the order.
The large case jumps are also causing a delay in contact investigations from the health department. The health department is asking anyone who gets tested to stay isolated before getting results. If it comes back positive from their health care provider, they ask people to stay isolated, because it could take 3-4 days before the department can contact the individual about close contacts.
