Recent numbers from Lyon County Public Health have indicated positive developments on the local COVID-19 recovery effort, and Emergency Preparedness Director Jennifer Millbern agreed on KVOE’s Newsmaker segment Thursday.
Millbern says the number of positive tests has been holding under 10 per day, even with increased testing and increased access to testing.
Millbern also voiced her support for USD 253 Emporia’s decision to move to Phase 2 of its coronavirus response plan Wednesday night. She credited administrators and staff for developing the plan and students for following through.
Even with the recent successes, Millbern says this is not the time to relax the effort. Hospitalizations need to come down, and there is still room for improvement in new cases. Millbern says getting down to three cases maximum per day over a period of at least two weeks would be needed to ease up on current restrictions. This also comes with cooler temperatures eventually becoming more common areawide as fall continues. Millbern says fall and winter are times when people obviously spend more time indoors, and that increases the disease risk. She says social distancing, keeping a close circle of contacts, hand hygiene and improving indoor air flow all need to be used to limit COVID-19’s spread through the winter into early spring.
