Public health update: Jan. 25, 2022

The following message was shared with the OHIO community on Jan. 25, 2022.

Dear OHIO community members,

It is encouraging that case rates are declining in areas of the United States where omicron first took hold. However, we have not yet felt that sense of relief here in rural Ohio.  

In early January we experienced an intense case surge driven by students completing at-home tests before returning for Spring Semester. Case rates at Ohio University rapidly declined since then to a level that was still unprecedentedly high, before beginning to increase again this week. The current increase in COVID cases is taking off from a rate that was already three times higher than any previous point in the pandemic:

Nearly every county that hosts an OHIO campus is following this trend: they experienced a sharp increase in cases between New Year’s Day and mid-January, followed by a sharp decline that has stabilized or is creeping up at a far higher daily case rate than ever before. Take a campus-by-campus look at the high plateau that most counties with an OHIO campus are experiencing. We are hopeful that a plateau and descent will soon follow. 

Given the fact that we are responding to a higher case rate than we have ever experienced, COVID Operations continues to communicate with an unprecedented number of OHIO community members. If you are waiting for a call back from one of our COVID Campus Liaisons, please know that they prioritize return calls based on symptoms and potential for spreading the virus. We care about all concerns and return every call. To streamline our interactions, we offer these tips for contacting our office.  

The public health tools we have been using all along work against omicron, despite its contagiousness. It is important to recommit to consistently using the tools that we know are effective: getting vaccinated and boosted, masking indoors or in crowds outdoors, avoiding large gatherings, testing regularly, washing hands, and staying home when sick. It sounds so simple but contact tracing has demonstrated that when people let their guard down, the virus finds opportunities to spread.

Understanding the difference between isolation and quarantine

As case rates rise so do the number of questions my office gets about who needs to isolate and quarantine and for how long. People often use the terms interchangeably or incorrectly, when in fact they have two distinct public health meanings relevant to any contagious disease: 

• Isolation separates sick people with a contagious disease from people who are not sick. Individuals who test positive for COVID-19 must isolate.
• Quarantine separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become sick. 

Knowing the difference between these terms is important because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has different guidelines for those who have tested positive for COVID (and must isolate) than for those who have been exposed to the virus (and may need to quarantine). This OHIO News story explains guidance for isolation versus quarantine and clarifies when individuals can return to campus activities. The story also provides a recap of the OHIO COVID-19 Protocol and what we all must do if we test positive, experience symptoms, or are exposed to COVID-19. 

OHIO vaccination and booster rate update

One thing OHIO has in its favor is our strong vaccination rate on the Athens campus and among residential housing students. Additionally, rates on our regional campuses continue to rise. Accounting for graduating students and new enrollees between fall and spring semesters, OHIO’s vaccination rates continue to impress, particularly when considered in the context of the counties* that host our campuses: 

• Athens campus 91% (Athens County 49%) 
• Chillicothe campus 73% (Ross County 46.67%)
• Eastern campus 68.5% (Belmont County 41.35%)
• Lancaster campus 72.3% (Fairfield County 55.06%)
• Southern campus 75.1% (Lawrence County 34.24%)
• Zanesville campus 72.7% (Muskingum County 46.92%) 

It is time to turn our attention to the importance of COVID-19 boosters in addition to vaccines. The CDC recommends a COVID-19 booster when and if eligible to be optimally protected against the virus. Individuals are considered “up to date” on COVID-19 vaccines if they have received all recommended COVID-19 vaccines, including boosters. In addition to the important protection a booster provides, having your booster on file with COVID Operations means you can avoid a five-day quarantine if you are exposed to COVID-19. So far, only 6,274 OHIO community members have uploaded their booster records. If you have had a booster dose but you have not uploaded it yet, please do so now. 

Attendance at COVID-19 vaccination and booster clinics on the Athens campus has been excellent all winter. Thank you for getting those shots! If you have not yet gotten a booster but are eligible, I encourage you to do so as soon as possible and to record your booster. Heritage Community Clinic will continue to offer vaccines and boosters every Friday. You can review clinic dates and times and upload your vaccine or booster record on this page, where we also will update regional campus clinics as they are scheduled. 

*Vaccination rates on OHIO campuses and associated counties are provided for population that has completed the primary series of COVID-19 vaccines, not including booster doses.

Please continue to protect one another

As our state continues to experience a surge in COVID-19 cases, each one of us can make a positive impact on our community’s health by staying the course despite pandemic fatigue. I promise you this surge will not go on forever: we already see case rates declining in other parts of the country, and we can expect the same to happen here. Our collective choices can help us get out of this surge sooner rather than later. Keep up your guard, OHIO: we will make it through this. 

Dr. Gillian Ice
Special Assistant to the President for Public Health Operations