Update from Covid-19 Task Force (July 12, 2022)

Recent changes in hospitalization data for Dane County could soon mandate changes in JRUUC operations, in compliance with the Strategic Plan v3 currently in effect, reducing the numbers of people allowed to gather indoors. 

Hospitalization data, one of the key measures that is tracked, is updated by CovidActNow every Friday. On 7-8-2022, weekly hospital admissions for Covid-19 rose to 9.5 per 100K, from 7.1/100K the week before. Dane County has not seen this hospitalization level since early in the year, during the Omicron surge.

If the hospitalization number rises to 10 or above with the next data report on Friday, the CDC would define Dane County Covid-19 risk as “High”, rather than Medium where it’s been for months. 

Our Strategic Plan would then mandate moving our operations to the Red level, which is significantly more restrictive than the Orange level that’s been in place for several months. Most notably, this would restrict our sanctuary capacity to only 21, in comparison to the 58 at at the current level.

This jump in hospitalizations has likely been driven by the increasing dominance of the BA-4 and BA-5 Omicron variants currently circulating. These variants are able to somewhat evade immunity from vaccinations or from previous Covid-19 infections. Therefore, some people are likely to become more seriously ill and need hospital care.

While we’re hoping the numbers will go back down, we wanted to give the congregation a head-up that changes might be necessary.