HELENA — On Friday, Lewis and Clark County reported just 6 new COVID-19 cases and with nine active COVID-19 cases. Cases are at their lowest levels in months in Lewis and Clark County and across the state.
Although COVID-19 cases across Lewis and Clark County are low, the transmission rate remains high, and the community level remains medium.
The transmission rate looks at the spread of COVID-19, positivity rates and weekly cases.
While the new CDC guidelines of community levels look at the number of hospital beds being used, hospital admissions and the total number of new COVID-19 cases to help determine preventative measures to be taken during low, moderate and high levels.
In the past week, Lewis and Clark County had in total 47 cases of COVID-19 while last week had 80 total confirmed cases.
County Public Health says they are equipped for new variants with the testing and vaccination systems they have in place.
“It would be nothing new for us to tackle if we have a new variant because we and the county have the tools to protect ourselves,” said Dorota Carpenedo, COVID-19 Epidemiologist Supervisor for Lewis and Clark Public Health.
Looking ahead to the new normal Public Health says if they could guess what the future holds for COVID-19 it may become endemic.
“We will probably move into something similar with the flu, when winter comes, we get spikes and when the warmer months come in, we will probably go into lower levels, it's not like covid is going away it will eventually become endemic,” said Carpenedo.
Public Health recommends masking during high transmission rates, getting vaccinated and keeping a safe distance.
You can find the daily update from Public Health here.
