COVID-19 cases fell sharply in Nebraska last week, hitting their lowest recorded levels in months.
The state added 2,121 new cases last week, down 28% from 2,936 the previous week, according to state data reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By percentage, that drop was the steepest since early April, and it put Nebraska cases at their lowest level since late May. Much of the state now is in the CDC’s “low” community level. Douglas County moved into that category Friday for the first time since early July. The community levels are a measure of how COVID is impacting communities, based on cases and hospitalizations.
The Nebraska trend mirrored what’s happening nationally.
U.S. virus cases fell 22% last week, by percentage the biggest drop in six months. U.S. cases have now fallen for seven consecutive weeks and are at their lowest level since early May.
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It’s still difficult to say where the unpredictable pandemic will go next, as cases surged during the winter months in both 2020 and 2021. But the case trends both here and nationally clearly are the most positive since early last spring.
One caveat: Case tallies are widely considered to be undercounts. Some people are not testing for the virus, and many who do are using at-home tests that aren’t included in official case counts.
The Nebraska Infectious Disease Society recommended at a meeting Saturday that all Nebraskans, including children, who haven’t done so already get their primary COVID vaccines. Those eligible for the new, updated boosters should get them as soon as possible. The new shots provide additional protection against omicron strains BA.4 and BA.5.
Dr. James Lawler, a co-executive director of the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Global Center for Health Security, said Monday that he thinks the new boosters will provide some advantage because they target those dominant strains. But likely the most important thing, he said, will be for people to have recent boosters as the nation moves into the traditional season for respiratory illnesses.
“We’d love to get as many people with a booster as possible,” he said.
The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid announced Monday that Americans can continue to get the vaccines at no cost, whether they are insured or not, as long as the federal government continues to buy and distribute the shots.
The updated Moderna vaccine is authorized for people 18 years of age and older. The updated Pfizer shot is authorized for people 12 and older.
The fact that the globe hasn’t seen the emergence of a major new variant in the last several months is good news, Lawler said.
He noted, however, that case counts, while down, haven’t fallen precipitously, similar to the pattern the state saw last year. And more children and young people have gotten the virus recently. They tend to drive transmission in the community over time.
While health officials early in the pandemic predicted that the nation would reach herd immunity, with people protected by a combination of infection and vaccination, many officials acknowledged last summer that reaching that point was unlikely.
Lawler said people tend to develop durable, lasting immunity to only a limited number of diseases. Researchers knew from the start that coronaviruses are not among them. People can get re-infected year after year with the common cold, also caused by coronaviruses. With COVID-19, the protection provided by the vaccines wanes over time, just like that from infections.
But the vaccines continue to do a good job of protecting people. “They’re doing the most important job, which is preventing severe disease,” Lawler said.
Ideally, he said, everyone would get up to date on vaccines, likely by vaccinating everyone every four months, which would not only prevent severe disease but keep transmission low. Barring that, repeated infections and vaccinations over time may diminish the severity of COVID waves. New vaccines also may produce broader immunity over time, but scientists won’t know until they have done the research.
Meanwhile, hospitalizations also continue to trend downward in Nebraska. A daily average of 174 Nebraskans were in hospitals with COVID last week, down from 198 the previous week.
The state recorded 33 more COVID deaths last week, bringing the total number of confirmed and probable deaths to 4,488. However, a state health official said most of the deaths reported last week did not actually occur last week and came through efforts to catch up on data. The state has recorded 533,000 confirmed COVID cases during the pandemic.