While the CDC Community Transmission level is still considered low, according to the County Health Department the average positivity rate rose from 4.3% on June 22, to 6% June 29th, to a current rate of 8.9% as of July 6.

And while wastewater analysis data shows high levels of COVID in both Dunkirk and the Jamestown-Falconer area, data is not available for the last two weeks.

60% of the population is now fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in Chautauqua County with 66.6% having at least one dose and 54.5% being fully vaccinated with a booster dose.

These case reports do not include any positive at-home testing results.

The Chautauqua County Health Department reported 10 people in the hospital due to COVID on May 18. That’s down one person from last week. However, the seven day average positivity rate is up 3% from last week to 14.7%.

According to the State’s COVID-19 monitoring, 302 people have died in Chautauqua County since the beginning of the pandemic.

The CDC Community Level is now considered moderate.

Wastewater monitoring for COVID-19 in Dunkirk, Jamestown, and Falconer show levels are low.

The Centers for Disease Control reports that 66.2% of the population in Chautauqua County has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine while 59.6% are fully vaccinated.

And the Federal Government is now offering an additional 8 free COVID-19 tests per U.S. household.

You can order the free at-home COVID tests at: https://www.covid.gov/tests.

The tests are being shipped by the U.S. Postal Service.

The Chautauqua County Health Department reported 11 people in the hospital due to COVID on May 11th. That’s up 3 people from last week. The seven day average positivity rate is up 2% from last week to 11.7%.

According to the New York State COVID-19 Dashboard, there were 351 confirmed cases of COVID-19 for the week of May 1 though 7. This is a nearly 75% increase in the amount of cases from the previous week.

These cases do not include any positive at-home testing results.

According to the State’s COVID-19 monitoring, 302 people have died in Chautauqua County since the beginning of the pandemic.

The CDC Community Level is still considerered low.

Wastewater monitoring for COVID-19 in Dunkirk show levels are low and increasing. Wasterwater monitoring for Jamestown and Falconer show levels are moderate and increasing.

The Centers for Disease Control reports that 66.2% of the population in Chautauqua County has received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine while 59.5% are fully vaccinated.

These cases do not include any positive at-home testing results.

The Chautauqua County Health Department is reporting that 8 people were hospitalized as of May 4th with a seven day average positivity rate of 9.2%. That’s up from the previous week’s rate of 8.3%.

According to the State’s COVID-19 monitoring, 301 people have died in Chautauqua County since the beginning of the pandemic.

The CDC Community Level is still considerered low.

Wastewater monitoring for COVID-19 in Dunkirk continues to show low levels. In Jamestown and Falconer, levels are low but samples show increasing amounts of COVID.

The Health Department said on their COVID-19 reporting dashboard that the wastewater results will now include the total flow of gallons per day. They said that higher flow rates through the treatment plants, whether from stormwater, septic, or landfill waste, dilutes the wastewater sample and can reduce the amount of SARS-CoV-02 RNA found per liter.

Wastewater sampling results for Jamestown and Dunkirk

The Chautauqua County Health Department reports that wastewater samples collected from Dunkirk and Jamestown Wastewater Treatment Plants detected low levels of COVID-19.

The samples were collected weekly since March 8, 2022.

The Health Department said people who are infected with COVID-19, whether or not they have symptoms, shed the virus in fecal matter. Wastewater testing is a non-intrusive and anonymous method to detect basic levels of COVID-19 in a community without relying on ill individuals to seek out testing.

Public Health Director Christine Schuyler said, “The wastewater surveillance program is an early warning system for managing COVID-19 as we transition to an endemic phase. Ongoing global surveillance gives us a better sense of how to respond to outbreaks of this disease because we can’t play catch up. We have to be prepared – not to isolate and quarantine people – but to mobilize staff and resources such as testing availability, PPE, the healthcare and long-term care systems, vaccination efforts, and first responders. A wastewater surveillance program is an important epidemiological tool in the communicable disease prevention toolbox.”

Raw (untreated) wastewater is collected weekly at the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities Wastewater Treatment Plant and the City of Dunkirk Wastewater Treatment Plant. Samples taken at the Jamestown plant represent waste from the entire City of Jamestown and the Village of Falconer. Samples taken at the Dunkirk plant represent waste from the entire City of Dunkirk. Samples are taken over a 24-hour period, then sent to the University at Buffalo Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering (UB) for analysis using Digital PCR technology.

The PCR technology detects the number of SARS-CoV-2 RNA copies present in wastewater. During the three weeks of testing, levels were less than 800 copies per liter at both the Jamestown and Dunkirk wastewater treatment plants. According to researchers at UB, the number of copies per Liter is generally in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands range when COVID-19 cases start to increase.

The COVID-19 Wastewater Monitoring program is being developed in partnership with the City of Dunkirk, City of Jamestown, UB, the New York State Department of Health, and the National Association of City and County Health Officials. Local data will be shared as a component of the Health Department’s weekly COVID-19 reports, and will also be included in the New York State Wastewater Surveillance Network Dashboard in the coming weeks.

Chautauqua County Legislature meeting – March 23, 2022

A resolution regarding a Wastewater Surveillance Pilot Program passed 16 to 2 in the Chautauqua County Legislature Wednesday night.

Legislator and County Board of Health member Liz Rankin said the program is not mandated and the county had originally planned to use American Rescue Plan monies to fund doing it before the grant was received. She said the grant had already been accepted with the resolution on the agenda adopting a budget for the grant.

Rankin said she was voting yes not just to fulfill the grant obligations but also because she believed in what the grant supports, “The wastewater surveillance program is an early warning system for managing COVID and to give a community profile, give us a heads up, not to isolate and quarantine people, but to mobilize staff and resources, first responders, and long term care systems. Public health surveillance has been around for a very long time.”

Rankin added wastewater surveillance has been done for decades including being used in the 1940s for polio, in the 1980s for Hepatitis A virus and norovirus outbreaks, and in the 1990s as well, “We are not creating something new. We are folding in a technology that’s going to work for us now. This is a great opportunity for us to stay on top of public health trends. The samples are collected at publicly owned central treatment plants and not in neighborhoods and not at specific houses. We’re not targeting anyone in particular. It is planning for the community based on results.”

An amendment proposed by Legislator Tom Harmon added language that would limit the collection of wastewater samples to publicly owned wastewater treatment plants. The amendment also stated a spreadsheet report on the collections would be provided after the pilot program ended on July 31, 2022.

Legislators John Davis and Bob Scudder were the two no votes.

The legislature unanimously approved a $2 million grant from the State Department of Health to hire fellows to work with the County Health Department.

Legislature Chairman Pierre Chagnon said he spoke with an epidemiologist who lives in his district who worked on the creation of the fellowship program. He said the program was established six months into the pandemic when state and local counties realized they didn’t have enough health care workers to deal with the pandemic effectively, “So the concept was, how do we get more people involved in public health, trained in public health, educated in public health. So this was created as a means of encouraging people to become more educated in public health by putting them to work in fellowships working with public health departments in the counties, doing work on the ground, learning about public health.”

Chagnon said under the program, fellows will be employed by not-for-profit organizations and work for and at the direction of the County Health Department, “Not at the direction of the state at all. So, they’re there to help the county health department, public health department. And they’re there to learn and experience the public health field first hand so that they can become better educated about the practice of public health and also to encourage those who are interested in pursuing education in public health.”

Chagnon emphasized the concerns he’s heard about the fellows working for the state are misinformed.

The legislature also passed a resolution accepting a a $25,000 grant for the Chautauqua County Mental Hygiene Department‘s Mobile Crisis Unit. The grant is to be used for education and training; billing, equipment and electronic medical record expenses.