Christian County Health Department

Our department has been approved as a provider for COVID-19 vaccine; however, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) has not allocated any vaccine to our department. We have not been notified by DHSS with a date that we can expect vaccine. I have included a link for you below from DHSS that explains the various phases of vaccine administration. When you click on the link you will need to click on the "Residents" tab to view the various phases. To ou...r knowledge, DHSS has only released vaccine to Walgreens and CVS in Christian County and they are only allowed to provide the vaccine to residents and staff in long-term care facilities. Once vaccine becomes available to groups beyond the 1 A phase, the DHSS will release a website informing citizens were vaccine will be available. We will post that information on our new website once it becomes available. Once our health department receives vaccine that we can administer to the general public, we will post that information on our website, Facebook page, and release a press release as well. https://covidvaccine.mo.gov/

As the holidays approach, CCHD would like to remind residents to take precautions if traveling and to follow guidelines by the CDC. Here is what the CDC recommends for travel during the holiday during this pandemic:

Here is an extremely helpful guide on answering the question of When Should I Self-Quarantine or Isolate? based on recent quarantine updates by the CDC.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE On December 7, 2020, numerous community members reached out to Christian County Health Department (CCHD) to voice their concerns over circulating photos on social media where individuals were not wearing masks or socially distancing at a high-capacity event that took place in Christian County over the weekend. CCHD has been in contact with the City of Ozark, where the venue is located and where there is a current masking ordinance in place. The City of... Ozark has an established process in place to investigate, enforce, and educate violators of the ordinance. Christian County has unfortunately seen an overwhelming rise in COVID-19 cases over the past several weeks and a subsequent increase in the number of hospitalized residents. The lack of regard for the masking ordinance and therefore its fellow community members by this venue and its occupants is not condoned by the CCHD. For several months, CCHD has encouraged and will continue to encourage all organizations and community members to place at least 6-feet of distance between yourself and others who are not in your household. In addition, CCHD will continue to encourage and support mandated face mask ordinances countywide to help slow the spread of COVID-19 in our community. CCHD is extremely concerned about the health and well-being of all our community members and particularly those who attended the high-capacity event over the weekend. CCHD encourages individuals who were present at the high-capacity event over the weekend to monitor for symptoms of COVID-19 for 14-days from the event date and seek medical attention if symptoms develop. Symptoms of COVID-19 include: Fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache, new loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea or vomiting, and diarrhea. ###

Learn more information on the Principles for Prioritizing COVID-19 Investigation and Contact Tracing from the graphic below:

The Health Department has received a number of questions regarding what activities are prioritized when conducting COVID-19 case investigations and contact tracing by the CCHD. Below is a categorized list with information provided by the CDC of Highest Priority Activities, Next Level Priority Activities, and Low Priority Activities which we follow.

Here are the latest numbers from the Christian County Health Department COVID stats. We have added the death count for Christian County. This information was obtained from the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services Dashboard. For more details you can visit their website: https://showmestrong.mo.gov/data/public-health/