As the coronavirus pandemic claimed its 100th victim in Douglas County, the county’s health director says new cases are growing among young people.
The Douglas County Health Department says it has tracked cases among three high school teams: One each in basketball, baseball and softball.
More adolescents are testing positive for COVID-19, although some are asymptomatic, said Adi Pour, Douglas County’s health director.
Pour also expressed concern about transmission in bars packed with patrons.
Throughout the pandemic, 43% of the county’s cases are from people in the under-34 age bracket, according to the county’s latest numbers.
But more recently, 56% of cases are from people that age, Pour said.
Pour cited the trend in a wide-ranging press conference Wednesday with Mayor Jean Stothert. The two officials addressed the demographic trends four months into the pandemic, the benchmark death tally, clusters of cases, the state of testing in the community, the potential for a vaccine, the strain on city funding, the controversy over masks and the return to school.
Earlier Wednesday, the Health Department announced it received three additional death certificates for people who had COVID-19: A man in his 60s, and a man and a woman older than 70.
That raised the county’s total to 100.
Pour said that number is higher than she anticipated for the pandemic.
“For me, every death is too much,” she said.
Locally, the state of the pandemic, circa early July, is that Omaha and Nebraska are increasingly reopening businesses and activities — including bars and team sports — even as people get infected with COVID-19.
Nebraska’s cases have fallen from an early May peak, but on Tuesday the state still added 155 new cases. Douglas County recorded another 102 new cases Wednesday.
Hospitalizations in the Omaha area have fallen from a high of 170 in late May to 86 in the most recent count.
On clusters: Pour said 40% of cases relate to a cluster of at least two cases. She said the county has recorded 315 different clusters, with 29 clusters and 1,370 individual cases stemming from the food processing industry and 35 clusters and 471 cases coming from long-term care facilities.
Pour said the county also has recorded 47 clusters in construction, most of which connect to just two or three people. She said many of the clusters are from the same company, and she generally cited cases involving a painter, electrician and plumber.
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On recent testing difficulties: Pour said she believes everybody who wants to get tested should be able to do so.
TestNebraska is now at the former Sears store at Crossroads Mall. The test site at 50th and G Streets that closed due to a supply shortage will start again this Sunday, Pour said.
If test results are delayed, Pour said people awaiting their results still should isolate themselves if they’ve been in contact with someone who has COVID-19.
“I know it’s difficult,” she said. “It’s not easy. I understand that.”
On a vaccine: Pour cited the possibility of mass vaccination happening next spring.
On city funding: Stothert said the City of Omaha still does not have a formal agreement with the State of Nebraska or Douglas County to provide federal pandemic recovery CARES Act funding to the city.
Stothert said the city calculated it has spent $66 million on expenses related to COVID-19, based on federal guidelines, or $38 million, based on the State of Nebraska’s more stringent guidelines.
The city is receiving no direct federal funding through the CARES Act.
Stothert said the city has made all the budget cuts it can without laying off employees. But she said that “I need an answer right away” on shared funding from the state and county.
“To me, the clock is ticking,” she said.
On masks: Both Stothert and Pour said it is outside their authority to require people in public to wear masks.
Stothert said she would support a mask mandate as a directed health measure from the governor, but said, “I don’t have that authority to do it now.
On back to school: Stothert and Pour also both said they support the Omaha Public Schools’ decision to bring students back on a split weekly schedule for in-school, in-person lessons.