REGIONAL- The latest statewide numbers indicate the most recent COVID-19 surge has leveled out and is losing steam, but case levels in St. Louis County are still at levels comparable to mid-February when the massive Omicron-driven wave was on the wane.
The Minnesota Department of Health, like the Centers for Disease Control and others, once included new cases added daily as a primary indicator of the COVID pandemic’s progress. With a large portion of testing having shifted to at-home tests, cases are now significantly undercounted, but still are useful for clues to trends.
And what’s being seen statewide in the past couple of weeks is encouraging. The seven-day average of new cases peaked in mid-May and has been trending downward. A more reliable indicator, hospitalizations, has also dropped. And the CDC has been flipping counties all across the state from orange to yellow or green on their COVID map to reflect improving community status.
But as of Wednesday morning, St. Louis County was still shaded orange, one of only seven in the state with a community COVID level of ‘high,’ not particularly surprising given the historical lag time COVID waves have shown for moving into and out of northeastern Minnesota.
While the state’s seven-day case average peaked on May 11, the same figure for St. Louis County didn’t peak until May 16, hitting 115.7. The county has been trending down since then, but still remained at 78.9 as of May 26.
Also notable is the measure of COVID in wastewater samples. From April 3 to May 18, the northeast region saw an increase of 178 percent in wastewater COVID load, with a recent three-percent drop consistent with indicators that the current wave has at least plateaued.
The May surge in St. Louis County clearly encompassed the North Country, as 120 cases were reported for the six zip codes monitored by the Timberjay from April 28 to May 26. Over half of those cases, 69, were in Ely, followed by Cook with 24. Both of those communities showed more cases in the early part of the month. Ely had only nine new cases in the May 26 report, and Cook had none.
Tower was the other zip code with double-digit cases, 14, during the period, but its highest weekly total of six came in the May 26 report.
However, the case trend in northern St. Louis County is headed in the desired direction, with the most recent data for cases per 100,000 people registering less than half of that for the county as a whole, and just a third of that for Duluth.
The uncertainty at this point comes from the newest Omicron subvariants of the virus, which have all been identified in the state. The most recent wave was driven by BA.2, which accounted for more than 90 percent of cases nationwide by late April and was more contagious than the original Omicron variant. BA.2.12.1, BA.4, and BA.5 are more contagious still, although none appear to be causing any more severe illness than their predecessors.
BA.4 and BA.5 were identified in South Africa in April and quickly grew to more than 70 percent of new cases there.
However, the biggest threat from BA.4 and BA.5 appears to be that their unique mutations are better than any previous variants in eluding the body’s defenses, whether natural or vaccine/booster induced.
Since those who have had COVID already are at greater risk of reinfection with these variants, and because vaccines and boosters are less effective at stopping them, BA.4 and BA.5 have a larger potential pool of people to infect.
CDC data released on Tuesday indicated that BA.4/5 have a solid foothold in the country, accounting for over six percent of new cases last week. But the variants are right on Minnesota’s doorstep. In Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri, 12.4 percent of new cases are being caused by BA.4/5.
Whether BA.4/5 eventually becomes dominant or other variants or subvariants emerge to supplant them, the warnings health officials have been sounding for nearly a year have become the “new normal” – the coronavirus continues to adapt and mutate, doing so at a rate which makes developing variant-specific vaccines difficult. Researchers are continuing work on possible vaccines specific to Omicron, with the hope that it will also be effective to some degree against Omicron subvariants.