Slowing the Spread of COVID-19

What are we trying to do by physical distancing?

Physical distancing, including staying home as much as possible, helps to reduce the spread of COVID-19 by minimizing how many direct interactions we have with other people. Through fewer close and direct interactions, there are fewer opportunities for someone who is ill to unknowingly spread the virus to others. The fewer direct interactions we have for a long enough amount of time, the less COVID-19 can spread in our community. Physical distancing is buying us all some time to increase the availability of testing and for the development of a vaccine and an effective medical treatment for this disease. 

How do we know that physical distancing efforts are working?

We will start to see the success of physical distancing if we see fewer reported cases over an extended period of time. We will also look to our hospital data to see if there is a leveling off or decrease in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 or symptoms that are similar to COVID-19 over a period of time. 

We will also know that physical distancing is working if we can keep our hospitals from becoming overwhelmed before there is more testing available.

What is an epidemiologic curve?

An epidemiologic curve is the curve on a graph of cases of a disease over time. For COVID-19, the peak of the curve is the highest point where the most number of cases being reported in a short span of time.

Image Source: Huffington Post

Flattening the curve means that we are using strategies such as stay at home and physical distancing to reduce the peak of cases to be less and over a wider amount of time to reduce the burden of a high number of positive cases on our hospital systems. Without taking steps to flatten the curve, we could see more cases that require hospitalization than our hospitals can manage.

When we flatten the curve, can we go back to normal?

While the current restrictions are working to flatten the curve, we would soon see a dramatic increase in cases and burden on our hospitals again if the restrictions are completely lifted overnight. While we also want to return to normal, it will be some time before that can happen. Protective measures like maintaining physical distancing and certain business restrictions will continue to be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. We plan to slowly reopen our businesses in a phased approach to minimize risk but allow our residents to return to work.

Are the hospitals empty?

Our hospitals are not empty. Because they are not allowing many visitors to their facilities, the parking lots may appear to be empty but there are many patients who are receiving medical care inside. They continue to see patients who need medical care for non-COVID-19 related health problems such as heart attacks, accidents, and other illnesses. They are also seeing patients who are ill with COVID-19. Our hospitals have made adjustments to their daily operations to increase their capacity to see patients and have restricted visitors to their facilities to keep their patients, visitors, and healthcare workers safe.

What is a medical surge?

Communities across the country are preparing for the potential of a medical surge. Medical surge happens when the demand for medical care is greater than the current capacity of our medical system. State and local governments work closely with our medical systems to ensure that plans are in place if this were to happen, including plans for widespread infectious diseases like COVID-19.

When do we expect to see medical surge?

Medical surge is complicated to predict without more testing but we would expect to see an increased demand for medical care for COVID-19 patients a few days to two weeks after a spike in the number of reported cases of COVID-19.

Why do we need alternate care sites?

An alternate care site allows our hospital systems to safely transfer COVID-19 patients who are stable but still require some level of medical care until they fully recover out of their facilities to make room for patients who require a higher level of medical care. We all hope these alternate care sites are never needed but will be a critical resource for our state and our region if we see a high demand for medical care due to COVID-19.