Clinton County Missouri Health Department

Good afternoon, Before I begin, I want to wish everyone a happy Veteran's Day. To all of those who have served and to your families, thank you for your service and sacrifice. I am past due for a COVID-19 update, so here we go: We stand at 679 confirmed cases, and 117 probable cases. Of these, 102 cases are active, and 655 have recovered. We are aware of 66 hospitalizations to date (we aren't aware of all who are hospitalized), and there have been 39 deaths to date. ...Continue reading

Good morning and Happy Halloween! Our COVID numbers currently stand at 549 confirmed cases, and 111 probable cases. Of these, 82 cases are currently active. It is important to note that we monitor both confirmed and probable cases in terms of whether they are active or resolved. Clinton County has experienced 25 deaths to date. Ages of those deceased range from 54 to 97 years old. 20 deaths are were residents of long term care facilities. 5 were residents of private homes wit...hin the County. We are aware of 54 hospitalizations to date, though we believe we aren't capturing all hospitalizations, as this isn't required to be reported, and in some cases isn't. It is Halloween! We hope you celebrate safely and have a enjoy a day with lovely weather. I have re-posted our Halloween Safety Tips with this post. Don't forget to brush your teeth!

Good afternoon, Since our last update, Clinton County has experienced an additional 11 COVID-19 associated deaths, bringing our total to 14. 11 of these deaths are residents of long-term care facilities, 3 are residents who resided in private homes within the County. Ages of those who have range from 60 to 97 years of age. There are currently 479 confirmed cases, and 93 probable cases within Clinton County. Of these, 98 cases are actively infected. 138 Cases have been diagnos...ed within Clinton County within the last 14 days. We ask that the community please continue to take reasonable measures to control the spread of this illness. Protecting long-term care facilities are only possible by preventing cases in healthcare workers who work at these facilities. This requires the entire community to actively adopt protective measures to prevent transmission of COVID-19 in community settings. Wash your hands, social distance, mask in public, stay home when you are sick, and avoid large group gatherings. These are all easily adoptable non-intrusive measures that will reduce the pool of active infections within our community. Stay Safe and Healthy.

We are saddened to share that 3 Clinton County residents have died due to COVID-19 related illness since our last post. We continue to implore the community to take steps to slow the spread of this illness.

Drive-through testing is available today till 7PM and tomorrow from 7AM to 3PM at the Kearney First United Methodist Church 1000 E State Route 92. You can pre-register at https://health.mo.gov/communitytest

Good afternoon, A quick COVID update for today. We currently have 286 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Clinton County and 45 probable cases. 36 Cases are currently active. 16 County residents are known to have been hospitalized to date. The week of September 21 brought the most new cases in a week to date, with 46 recorded on that week. Our Community Testing Event held Saturday before last tested 165 people from 11 Counties throughout Missouri. Of those, 14 tests returned posit...ive. 103 Clinton County residents were tested, which resulted in 7 positive tests for County residents. The State of Missouri has deployed a new COVID-19 information dashboard with significantly more data available, including information separated by school districts, hospitalization data, and much more. It can be found here: https://showmestrong.mo.gov/data/public-health/ One of the things I try to touch on every week is what we are seeing trend-wise that stands out to us. The two things we have observed over the last couple of weeks are alarming. First, we are seeing a pretty significant increase in age associated with new cases. Along with this, we are seeing a very significant increase in hospitalizations. Since September 1, the average number of persons hospitalized from Northwest Missouri has nearly tripled. Some of these cases locally, we are able to trace back to gatherings and the like, but many others, we cannot determine where the patient was exposed. I feel like a broken record when making these posts, but the items we most often repeat, are also the actions by which we as a community can protect ourselves, our families, our neighbors, and those who are most at risk when they contract this illness. Social Distance, Wear a Mask in Public, Wash Your Hands, and Stay Home if You Are Sick. If we all would adhere to these four items, the risk to the public would substantially decrease. Last but not least, I promised Halloween safety information this week. In order to safely experience Halloween this year, we encourage folks to slightly alter their activities in order to reduce risk. We encourage you all to read the tips below, and use creative ways to allow for trick-or-treating to occur while social distancing. We have heard of some really great ideas in distributing candy, including use a tube to drop candy into children's buckets, or using a "long reach" tool to drop candy into buckets. We encourage everyone to be creative in implementing ways to trick-or-treat safely. Large group gatherings continue to be discouraged, as they create the greatest risk of spread. Have a great week. We hope you enjoy the warm weather. Stay Healthy, and Stay Safe.

Our first drive-through flu clinic is today from 10AM till 2PM at the Cameron Fire Department.

Good evening folks, This one might be kind of long, I have quite a bit of information to share. Last week I was able to bring some good news, but unfortunately this week's post isn't quite as cheery....Continue reading

A Drive-Through Community COVID-19 Testing will be held September 26, 2020 from 7AM to 3PM at the Cameron High School parking lot. This testing is open to any Missouri resident and is free of charge. Testing provided is PCR testing for current COVID-19 infection. There is no requirement that a person have symptoms be tested, and is open to everyone. Testing is being provided by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services with assistance from the Missouri National Guard and the Clinton County Health Department. To register, please visit https://health.mo.gov/communitytest you can also register by calling the Missouri COVID-19 Hotline at 877-435-8411.

The Clinton County Health Department will be holding drive-through flu vaccination clinics this fall. We accept most private insurance, as well as medicare and medicaid. We have publicly funded vaccine available for uninsured or under-insured persons. The Clinics will be held:... Oct 2nd 10AM-2PM at the Cameron Fire Department. Oct 12th 10AM - 2PM at the Lathrop Fire Department Oct 14th 10AM - 2PM at the Plattsburg Fire Department Oct 19th 2PM-4:30PM at the Gower Fire Department Please wear loose clothing. If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call at 816-539-2144

Good afternoon folks, It has been a while since I last posted, and for that, I apologize. The last two weeks have been a significant challenge for us in dealing with cases which were coming in at a rate higher than we were able to investigate them. The situation required us to pause all other activities in order to handle those, and as a result, my regular social media updates had to be paused.... To put things into perspective, we went from 131 cases on September 1 to 179 cases as of this morning. The majority of these are related to an outbreak associated with a school district in the county, though we continue to see cases throughout the county originating from multiple sources. Each case is required to be investigated, contact traced, and appropriate interventions applied, all of which consume a significant amount of staff time. Through this outbreak, we have been able to handle the caseload without having to prioritize COVID response over other activities, but had to do so over the last two weeks in order to appropriately respond to the caseload. With that explanation out the way, lets get on to our current status. We stand at 179 confirmed cases. We are currently aware of 3 county residents currently hospitalized. There have been no confirmed COVID deaths within Clinton County. The significant surge in cases we were seeing has slowed significantly. We have experienced cases of COVID in all 4 school districts located within Clinton County, and have worked with the schools to identify and quarantine close contacts associated with those cases. I wanted to share some good sources of data with you all. First, the CDC has a COVID data tracker page which can be found here: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#cases_totalcases The Missouri Department of Health's COVID Dashboard can be found here: http://mophep.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html And a relatively recent addition is interactive dashboards from the Missouri Hospital Association which can be found here: https://web.mhanet.com//infe/covid-19/covid-19-dashboards/ I will provide a bit more contemporary data later this week once we have had a chance to make our in-house analytics current. One final note: Threats made against the Health Department, or Health Department staff will be reported to law enforcement for investigation and prosecution. This goes without saying, but unfortunately, I have to say it. There is no expectation that our page be an echo chamber. We always have and always will entertain all opinions, and both recognize and encourage the exchange of differing opinions and ideas as being the hallmark of a free society. There is an expectation, however, that all who frequent here will conduct themselves in a manner that is within the confines of polite conversation. In closing, I remind you that we don't just work here. We are your neighbors, your friends, and in many cases your family, just as you are ours. Stay Safe and Healthy