During Pettis County COVID-19 Task Force Briefing on Monday, December 7, the Pettis County Health Center announced the county will continue with quarantine for 14 days after exposure instead of the 7-10 days recommended by the CDC.
As an Extreme High Risk County, this provides the best opportunity to reduce the risk of transmission. For completely ASYMPTOMATIC individuals who absolutely can not remain in quarantine for 14 days, the 10 day option may be used. Individuals need to continue to monitor for the entire 14 day period and seek testing if symptoms develop. Any option to test out of quarantine is not appropriate for our county. The entire text of the revised quarantine guidance will be available on the Pettis County Health Center website. Nothing has changed for the isolation period of 10 days for positive cases.
As of noon on December 7, there were 3,562 cases compared to 3,304 cases on November 30 and 3,089 cases on November 23. This is an increase of 258 cases in the past week and 473 cases in the past 2 weeks. The cases from Thanksgiving gatherings are starting to come in and the Health Department expects that there will be an increase in hospitalizations starting mid-week and into the weekend.
The positivity rate for the month of November is 35.45%. The rate for the week of November 22-28 is 23.39% and the rate per 100,000 is 514.89. The trend for December is starting to turn upward again. The data on the DHSS website for Pettis County is not correct. There is a note outlining the issue. The data entry is being corrected and the note will be removed when the data is corrected.
Based upon the public health warning issued by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Pettis County is an extreme risk county. The parameters for being an extreme risk county are a PCR 7-day positivity rate of 15% or above and a 7 day case rate per 100,000 of 350 or above. As stated above, Pettis County far exceeds these thresholds. The recommendations from the guidance include occupancy limits in businesses to reflect social distancing (a minimum of 6 feet between customers or tables), limiting social groups to 10 or less (a social group is defined as any planned or spontaneous event or gathering that would bring together a group of people in a single space at the same time, excluding normal business activities, religious services, schools and school activities and extended family gatherings) and masks strongly advised (although still required in Pettis County) in all offices and businesses where social distancing is not possible.
Due to the large number of cases the Health Center has received, they are no longer able to call all positive cases within several days of receiving the notification. Therefore, anyone who receives a positive test result from the place where they are tested are to remain in isolation for 10 days from the test. Isolation means no close contact with anyone in your household including sleeping arrangements. If you cannot remain separate, then everyone must wear a mask when within 6 feet of each other. If that is not possible, then the quarantine for household members will begin at the end of the 10 day isolation for the positive case. You will receive a call within the 10 day period of isolation. If you do not hear from the Health Center after 10 days, you are asked to contact the Health Center directly as they may not have been notified of your test result.
Additional instructions on how to receive information for employers/school is available on the Pettis County Health Center website, www.pettiscountyhealthcenter.com and Facebook page.