Montgomery County officials held a briefing Wednesday on why the county and CDC report other rates of COVID transmission. Reporting through Fox 5’s Stephanie Ramirez.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. – County fitness officials answered questions Wednesday in hopes of clarifying the county’s COVID-19 reports.
Parents again expressed frustration as the Health Department has registered the county as a “high transmission” domain, while the CDC still has the county as “moderate. “
Questions arose online last week, especially after a summer camp program in the city of Gaithersburg emailed families to say that since the county reported “high” COVID transmission, the program would return to indoor mask wearing starting Aug. 1. The camp then canceled those demands.
Board member Andrew Friedsono addressed the issue of the report in a tweet last week: CDC. It’s not as good or as good as some suggest. The #s/trends will have to INFORM, not DICTATE, the policy. “
Sean O’Donnell, public fitness emergency preparedness officer with the County Department of Health and Human Services, told reporters Wednesday, “We collect hospital knowledge throughout Maryland. Every day, our hospitals report those censuses for COVID and non-COVID patients. It includes care sites of choice that are located in Prince George’s County and County. . . Over time, the numbers are reaching 50% of COVID patients or, in fact, more than 50% of our COVID patients would possibly be at this site of care of choice as hospitals move solid COVID patients to a position where they can cluster together and where the threat of COVID transmission to other patients is less. We think it’s very important that this is included in our census.
It was explained that CDC reports come with much broader knowledge across jurisdictions. Knowledge of Montgomery County doesn’t come with D. C. , but it does come with sites of choice.
“It’s also critical that we don’t count inpatients in hospitals,” said Dr. Earl Stoddard, Assistant County Executive Director. County citizens who are hospitalized in Prince George’s County, for example, we don’t count them either. So before you think we’re artificially inflating our numbers, keep in mind that’s not the case: We’re counting other people hospitalized in county hospitals. “
When asked if he was guilty of reporting that the county was at maximum transmission without explaining this knowledge, county chiefs said DHHS tried to be as transparent as possible and spoke with providers from the early years of training to explain the knowledge and why DHHS was insuring. Recommendations
“It’s very important not only the quantitative numbers, but also qualitatively why we look at them,” O’Donnell said.
Montgomery County Encourages Indoor Mask Wearing as COVID-19 Cases Rise
The county’s fitness emergency preparedness officer also pointed to a CDC disclaimer stating that the state or county involved would provide more accurate knowledge.
County chiefs also said they were in communication with the CDC where they could better align, but they still encouraged mask wearing and did so earlier this summer when COVID cases were underway but hospitalizations had declined.
O’Donnell showed that patent reports processed in the county from other spaces have always been included in county data.
On Monday, the O’Donnell branch tweeted that a knowledge error appeared on the county’s COVID dashboard last week. FOX 5 contacted DHHS for an explanation, as this was not discussed at Wednesday’s virtual briefing.
However, authorities have released statistics showing that last year the county had 50 cases equivalent to 100,000 citizens, compared to more than 200 cases equivalent to 100,000 citizens today.