GASCONADE COUNTY — The Gasconade County Health Department reported that the county’s Center for Disease Control (CDC) COVID-19 community level remained low in the last week.

In total, there were six new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases in Gasconade County in the last week. This kept the county at the lowest community level (green). Two weeks ago, Gasconade County was at the highest community level (orange) before falling back to the green level last week with only five new lab-confirmed cases.

Gasconade County Health Department Medical Director Michael Rothermich, MD, reported that he did not believe the elevation to the highest level was cause for concern. He said that due to Gasconade County’s size and the CDC’s method of determining a county’s community COVID-19 level using the number of new lab-confirmed cases or hospitalizations per 100,000 people, the data can look concerning. It only takes two hospitalizations of Gasconade County residents to move up to the highest level.

“When you get to small counties like ours, it doesn’t take much to make the data do wonky things,” he said.

The data also reflects a low number of total cases because many people receive COVID-19 diagnoses through at-home tests rather than lab tests. Only lab-confirmed cases count toward the CDC data.

Rothermich also reported that statewide hospitalizations and ICU stays related to COVID-19 also remained low.

“Basically there’s no news,” he said. “I would say there is nothing of interest going on the COVID front right now. In the state of Missouri, COVID is as low as it’s been essentially since the beginning of the pandemic. We’re in what I would call the monitoring stage. Every Monday, I look and see if there’s anything I need to warn people about. Not much is newsworthy (this week).”

Rothermich also said that major spikes in COVID-19 cases in Gasconade County often coincided with spikes at both the state and national levels. He said spikes were often linked to new variants, such as the Delta variant in September 2021 and the Omicron variant in January 2022, and state and national data reflected those spikes.

The CDC’s recommendations for low-level counties include mask-wearing for people with symptoms, a positive test or exposure to an infected person; testing if individuals have symptoms and staying up to date on COVID-19 vaccines.