Olmsted County ends COVID public health emergency
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May 2—ROCHESTER — Olmsted County commissioners ended the local COVID-19 public health emergency Tuesday.
"This is sort of an end to a really, really amazing, challenging period of time that our public health staff led, but really affected all of our departments," commissioner Sheila Kiscaden said following a unanimous vote.
The county emergency was declared March 17, 2020, providing the county with expedited powers to aid in the response of the global pandemic.
With the
first confirmed COVID case
reported in the county on March 11, 2020, a total of 53,570 cases were confirmed throughout the pandemic, which outpaced statewide rates.
"That was due to our huge access to testing," said Meaghan Sherden, the county's lead epidemiologist, who is transitioning to a new role as Olmsted County Public Health associate director.
The county worked with Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center to open a testing site at Graham Park on March 23, 2020, and Sherden said the community's health care roots appeared to make people more willing to be tested when showing COVID symptoms.
"That didn't necessarily translate into hospitalizations and deaths," she said of the local rate of confirmed COVID cases.
With 2,196 COVID-related hospitalizations — and 353 intensive-care stays — reported since the start of the pandemic, Sherden said the rate remained lower than what was reported statewide.
The same was seen in the reported 237 Olmsted County deaths attributed to COVID.
"It's almost half of what the state's rate was," she told county commissioners Tuesday.
The end of the public health emergency doesn't mean the end of the associated work, Olmsted County Public Health Director Denise Daniels said.
"We will continue to monitor and have surveillance systems set up, so should something make a drastic change we'll be ready and prepared and we'll see that in a timely manner," she said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has listed Olmsted County as an
area of low COVID transmission
since the beginning of March.
The last federal report shows the county had a rate of 11.37 new confirmed cases per 100,000 during a seven-day period. It's nearly half of the reported statewide rate of 22.4 cases during the same period.
Sherden said the county's high vaccination rate, which ranked among the top counties on state and national levels, likely contributed to reduced rates after vaccines were available.
Public Health administered 26,586 doses of vaccine, frequently reaching out to people through community partnerships aimed at reaching people who weren't going to Mayo Clinic, OMC or area pharmacies.
"A lot went into getting to that number," she said of the department's vaccination rate.
In the wake of the local emergency, Daniels and Sherden said public health staff will continue to analyze what worked and what challenges were seen during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Among areas expected to see more study are the racial disparities seen among Black and Hispanic residents.
Throughout the pandemic, the county saw an overall COVID rate of 978.5 cases per 10,000 people among white residents, while Black residents saw a rate of 1,194 cases per 10,000 people. The rate for the Hispanic population was 1,140 cases per 10,000 people.
Similar disparities were seen in hospitalization and death rates.
"There are a lot of equity questions we need to look at," Sherden said, adding that the study will be part of ongoing work to plan for the next public health emergency.
Daniels said the work will also include ongoing efforts to address COVID.
"COVID-19 has become a part of our lives, and we will continue focusing on monitoring the virus and promoting vaccinations," she said in a statement announcing the end of the public health emergency.
Olmsted County Public Health Services will continue providing COVID-19 vaccines and boosters at its 2100 Campus Drive location in Rochester, and the department will also continue to inform and educate the public about COVID-19 threats and prevention through its website,
and
social media sites.
* March 5, 2020 — Olmsted County Public Health conducts a press conference with Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center as worldwide COVID-19 cases are being tracked.
* March 6, 2020 — The first confirmed COVID case in Minnesota is reported.
* March 11, 2020 — The first confirmed COVID case in Olmsted County is reported.
* March 13, 2020 — State and federal emergencies are declared.
* March 17, 2020 — Olmsted County commissioners declare a public emergency.
* March 18, 2020 — County buildings are closed.
* March 23, 2020 — Graham Park is established as a COVID testing site.
* Nov. 14, 2020 — Testing site is closed, with testing shifted to Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center sites.
* Dec. 21, 2020 — First local doses of COVID-19 vaccine are administered to emergency service providers.
* Feb. 5, 2021 — County holds first mass vaccination event.
* April 1, 2021 — County deactivates incident command structure, but continues to monitor COVID rates.
* Aug. 16, 2021 — Incident command is reactivated in response to an increase of Delta variant cases.
* January 2022 — Omicron variant hits Olmsted County.
* March 31, 2022 — County deactivates second incident command structure.
* April 26, 2023 — Public health sends county commissioners its last weekly report on COVID.
* May 2, 2023 — County commissioners vote to end the local public health emergency.
* May 11, 2023 — Federal emergency is slated to end.
