NORTHAMPTON — As the city’s COVID-19 case count continues its rise — 146 people have tested positive for the virus since October — the health director is issuing a grim warning about the next several weeks and urging the community to stay diligent.
“As for the holidays, all I can say is in my opinion, the worst days are coming upon us — December through the end of January are going to be extremely difficult times and I urge everyone to do your part,” Health Department Director Merridith O’Leary told the City Council last week during an extensive COVID update in which she noted that there is “a lot more” community transmission today than in the spring and talked about the distribution of a vaccine next spring.
She urged people not to attend large gatherings, adding “I’m sad too that I don’t get to see my three grown kids.”
O’Leary said the number of COVID cases were “extremely low” at the end of summer and into the start of fall. They started to go up in October, with 146 identified in October, November, and the first few days of December leading up to the council’s meeting last Thursday. In total, during the pandemic, the city has had 476 cases, she said.
“We can see what’s happening on the national level, we’re trending the same way here in the county (Hampshire) and in Northampton,” O’Leary said.
She’s expecting case counts to grow. After holidays, O’Leary typically sees a “steep” increase in cases two to three weeks later. “We’re expecting the same to happen because of the Thanksgiving holiday,” she said.
Some COVID-19 trends have changed since the early months of the pandemic, O’Leary told the council. In the last three months, about 10% of cases in Northampton were people living in long-term health care facilities, such as nursing homes.
“Conversely, back in April when we were in our first surge, over 65% of ours cases were in long-term health facilities and the remainder were what we call community transmission,” she said. “So there’s a lot more community transmission happening now.”
Contact tracing has also changed, she said.
“The cases were way more simple in April and May because people were more shut in at that point … the number of contacts, the average, I think was 3.5,” she said, adding that most were household members. “Now the cases are extremely complex. People’s worlds have gotten a lot bigger … Trying to identify close contacts is a very cumbersome and laborious job.”
At-large councilor William Dwight asked how the department is communicating with seniors who may be isolated and for whom a holiday gathering may be tempting. O’Leary said she’s heard from seniors who decided seeing family was worth the risk.
“They were going to die of loneliness,” she said. But she said, “I feel with vaccines so tangible right now, we can almost reach it, my message is hold on … I know it can be extremely lonely, but we want you to be here in January. Please don’t take the risk.”
The health department is also planning how to vaccine the community once that’s possible.
“We’re anticipating March at the earliest for local communities to get vaccines,” O’Leary told the council. “Once we get vaccines, we are going to want to do mass vaccinations for our communities.”
In the shorter term, she said the department is thinking about opening a small scale, once-weekly testing site.
“It’s not going to be a set location, and it’s not going to be open to the general public,” she said. “It’s going to be very scripted on who can get testing.”
For example, she said, the department may focus on testing front-line workers like those in grocery stores and restaurants. “A lot of transmission is happening in our businesses,” O’Leary said.
She has also lobbied for the state to open a testing site in Hampshire County for the public to use. The state announced on Monday that it open such a site at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst on Monday.
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.