Lane County COVID-19 surge continues

Lane County COVID-19 surge continues

A better handle on the virus.

Kezi 9 news reporter jillian smukler joins us live with more on their warning -- and how schools in our area are responding -- jillian?

Matt -- renee -- six months into this pandemic -- lane county is reporting the worst numbers we've seen so far.

175 people are considered infectious -- which is an all time high.

We have*seven outbreaks in our area currently.

And the universiy of oregon saw its highest daily covid-19 count yesterday.

This comes as health officials say they're falling behind --- and things need to turn around*fast.

"this is the most significant spike we've seen to date" jason davis with lane county public health says he's concerned.

"we are worried that the spike will result in a continued exponential increase in cases" so much so -- they're bracing for three to four weeks of an upward trend.

"then we lose a handle on the preventable measures and we see it spread throughout the county and into populations who can be very adversly affected by covid" so -- they're going back to the basics.

"the first and best way is to not have social gatherings" back when we had a relatively low case count -- we were able to adjust our gatherings to make them safer.

But now -- since our cases and contacts are considered*high -- they want them to stop all together... bottom line, even ten is too many.

Especially because they say that's what's driving the spread.

"it really enables public health to get a better handle on the cases and it will result in us being able to have a downward slope in our cases" davis says lane county is dealing with seven outbreaks right now -- all made up of people ages 17 to 28.

But he wanted to make one thing clear -- "this is not a university of oregon problem we are seeing students from other schools involved in these clusters, we are seeing people who are in this age group who are not students this is a behavior problem" this comes after the u of o saw its highest daily covid-19 case count wednesday...18.

But even still -- he says if the majority of the community practices good preventative measures -- it wont spread as fast.

"the behavior spreads far beyond the people who are actually sick because we are seeing it spread to other age groups as well" a university of oregon spokesperson says since lane county had such low numbers in the past -- they anticipated an increase in cases.

That's why they proactively put extra strict prevention measures in place for students living on and off campus.

Steve clark with oregon state university agrees.

And he says we need to put as much attention onto our individual actions -- as we do towards schools.

"steve clark, "the data so far indicates that our students are like other oregonians, some have the virus, many in corvallis have the virus, some are asymtomatic some are not, but thats why testing is so important but thats also why public and personal health measures are so important" jason davis says we're also seeing new cases at long term care facilities and workplaces.

And he's heard reports of people returning to work why being symptomatic and infectious.

He says -- once they reach the threshold of ten cases at these workplaces -- they'll give us more information.

And the sooner we slow the spread -- the more detailed information we can recieve.

Reporting live in eugene jillian smukler kezi 9