BOZEMAN - There was another interesting health update this week.
“We’ve seen a significant spike in our cases," said Gallatin County Health Officer Lori Christenson. "We have seen a significant number of active cases in our K-12 schools. Not surprising, given the fact that we are experiencing a high rise in cases, we continue to be in high community transmission.”
Since December 29th, the 7-day rolling average of daily cases per 100,000 residents has increased 60 percent. And some more concerning news came from the meeting.
“It’s absolutely hard to believe that we’re nearly two years into this COVID-19 pandemic, and over the past few weeks, recently our care teams have experienced an uptick in the number of visitors displaying aggressive and disrespectful behaviors towards them,” said Bozeman Health's Kallie Kujawa.
“We’re going to get through this," said Christenson. "We’re going to pull through as a community. We're going to pull through as individuals.”
But she was clear the incidents have not gotten physical.
“It’s not violence," said Kujawa. "It’s aggressive behaviors, so threats, verbal kind of attacks.”
In addition to these two points, there was a clear warning sent to Gallatin County residents about where the community currently is at.
“Omicron is definitely something to take very seriously," said Christenson. "The median age of individuals who are hospitalized who are vaccinated, that median age is 72 and unvaccinated, that median age is 58.”
And before the hour-long meeting ended, there were some encouraging words.
“We’re going to get through this," said Christenson. "We’re going to pull through as a community. We're going to pull through as individuals.”
Like always, a recording of the entire meeting can be found here.
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