Public Health Director Janelle Linn gave an update on local COVID-19 statistics and mitigation last week before the Navajo County Board of Supervisors. “Last week (Jan. 18-25) we had 901 new cases reported to public health. That is the highest number of cases we have worked in a week since the start of the pandemic. We had sometimes almost 300 cases a day. These are non-tribal case counts.” Linn mentioned that the department is seeing more cases in younger individuals. She said, “The average age last week was 37 years old. 60% of cases were under the age of 40. Over half, 51% of our new cases, had been in vaccinated individuals. Very few of those had received their booster doses, however. We had six hospitalizations reported to us, and only one of those was a vaccinated individual.” She continued, “We are still seeing a relatively high mortality rate with 11 deaths reported to us with the average age of 66 years old. None of them had been vaccinated.” Both the Delta and Omicron strains are circulating in Navajo County, Linn explained. “We think both are circulating heavily and also have the flu in our community and are seeing co-infection of influenza and COVID. So, we are still really encouraging people to be aware of their symptoms and stay home if they are sick. It’s not worth the risk, as we have said, you may do fine but someone more vulnerable may fair as well.” Mitigation still includes distancing, mask wearing, hand washing and receiving all three doses of vaccination. Linn concluded, “For off tribal lands, we are still under 50% vaccine coverage rate. We are hearing from our tribal partners that they all have very high vaccination rates. The Navajo Nation tells us it is above 75% of their age eligible population are fully vaccinated with a booster. The CDC was using the term fully vaccinated to describe two doses and a booster. They are starting to do away with that term and have replaced it with, ‘up to date’ on vaccination and to be considered up to date, you have to have every vaccine available to your age group including any recommended booster doses. Navajo Nation is reporting that they are above 75% up to date on vaccinations.” Research is showing, according to Linn, that antibodies from previous COVID infection are not offering much immunity from the Omicron strain. She said, “This is why we are encouraging the vaccine and booster. While Omicron does seem to be milder, people are still dying from it. We still do have Delta, which is much more deadly circulating in our community. A lot of sequences cases are coming back as Delta.” She concluded, “Please get your vaccine, please get your boosters. We keep hoping someday that this will be over.”
