How did these hard-hit counties flatten their coronavirus curve? Communities that combined social distancing with creativity are in position to consider re-opening plans.
Across America, coronavirus infection rates are starting to decline in communities that weathered significant outbreaks – an indicator of when it may be OK to plan a return to normal.
"Our death rate went up early and woke people up," said Tracy Dolan, the state's deputy health commissioner. "We're going to start slowly opening the spigot and will be watching for an increase in transmission." Cumberland County, Maine, is one of the places where positive signs haven’t panned out. From March 30 through April 6, the county added a total of 100 cases. The following week, it added 40.Where glimmers of progress emerge, public health experts advised a renewed focus on vulnerable populations such as the homeless, the incarcerated and seniors in care facilities.
Onondaga County officials canceled a large St. Patrick’s Day parade and shut down schools in mid-March – earlier than the state mandate and before any outbreak in the county. It set up a testing site near vulnerable communities of color and advertised voluntary shelter-in-place rules before state guidelines were issued.
“We know for our seniors with any underlying conditions, they have a nasty fight on their hands if they get the virus,” McMahon said. “We also want to find those asymptomatic employees before it becomes a problem.”, in which teams of workers contact those potentially exposed, who can be tested and isolated.Washtenaw County, Michigan – home to Ann Arbor – leaned on contact tracing to slow down an escalating problem.
Planning to reopen the county next month, the department is thinking through how it can keep up with intensive contact tracing while resuming regular restaurant inspections and other routine work. "We are seeing some indications that all the hard work and all the sacrifices put into social distancing are starting to have an impact on the numbers,” Cerniglia said. “But all that said, we're fearful of jumping into normal levels of activities and seeing those cases jump right up."For smaller communities, slowing the disease can be relatively simple. Tracking the path of infection can lead back to one location or event.
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