Some officials say the COVID-19 numbers being provided locally about how many people have been tested for the virus, how many people have tested positive and how many have died are not telling the whole story.
Town, city, hospital and Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG) officials all agree there are many more people who have COVID-19 throughout the county who haven’t received a clinical diagnosis because their symptoms aren’t severe enough to require intervention or testing, or they are asymptomatic and haven’t sought care, and who are self-isolating at home.
The biggest problem, officials say, is that there still is not enough testing. Currently, only the sickest are tested, so the percentage of deaths seems much higher because no one knows exactly how many people in Franklin County have the virus but are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms and are recovering without intervention.
FRCOG Director of Community Services Phoebe Walker said while the agency and the boards of health it works with throughout the county had at one time considered releasing numbers about specific towns, after much discussion it was agreed that those numbers wouldn’t tell the entire story, so it didn’t make sense to do so.
Walker said instead, towns and cities — like Greenfield, Buckland and Orange, to name a few — have decided to report those numbers on a daily and individual basis. Other towns, like Montague, have decided against it.
She said that FRCOG is contacting doctors across the county to see if there is a way for them to report their clinical diagnoses, so that the agency can follow those people and trace their contacts.
“I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to get attached to numbers right now,” Walker said. “They’re not true. We want to make sure people are doing what they should be doing, like staying home. I think we’d all do better right now to help parents figure out what to do with their children and discuss what people should eat to stay healthy and strong. There are so many things we can all do to get through this, besides obsess about numbers.”
Walker said the Department of Public Health recommends that towns, especially small towns, not provide numbers if there are five or fewer confirmed cases, because it is too easy to identify those people and there are privacy issues.
Mayor Wedegartner’s Chief of Staff Danielle Letourneau said, for instance, Greenfield continues to keep track of those they know are sick but have not been tested, and officials are tracing contacts of those people, as well, to make sure they are taking the proper precautions to keep the rest of the community safe. She said those people are not included in daily numbers until they are tested and confirmed.
Baystate Health provides daily numbers, but does not break them down by hospital — there are five in its system, including Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield. That is because, hospital officials have said, the most severe cases are sent to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield to recover.
As of Friday, Baystate had tested 2,603 individuals with 1,989 coming back negative and 584 positive. There were still 30 test results pending. The numbers Baystate provides each day are cumulative, meaning those are the numbers from all five of its hospitals combined.
According to hospital officials, the system is caring for 170 hospitalized patients with confirmed cases. Twenty-nine of those were in critical care on Friday. The hospital is also caring for nine people who were under investigation for COVID-19 infection.
Baystate said in a written statement, “We are not reporting hospital-specific data to ensure patient privacy is maintained, especially in our smaller facilities. There continues to be hopeful news: nearly two-thirds of the total confirmed patients with COVID-19 infection either never needed to be admitted (199) or were discharged and are recovering (159).”
Walker, Letourneau and hospital spokespeople have all said the best way to stop the spread and flatten the curve is to continue social distancing, stay home unless absolutely necessary, wear a mask when leaving home, wash hands at the very least every hour and follow all of the other recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state Department of Public Health.
Residents in Greenfield have expressed concern about the numbers there and the percentage of deaths, fearing that the percentage is “much higher” than other parts of the country. As of Friday, there were 79 confirmed cases, 21 recoveries and deaths are holding steady at 19, officials say (those numbers are cumulative).
According to the city, recovery is defined as 72 hours with no symptoms, no medications to treat symptoms and clinical improvement, which means, for instance, that a person’s breathing has improved.
Also according to city officials, deaths are those who received a positive for COVID-19 and have died, but it is unclear if the virus was the main cause of death or if it was a contributing factor.
In Greenfield, for instance, there are three skilled nursing facilities that house the most vulnerable populations — the elderly and disabled — and each of those have reported confirmed cases and deaths.
It is not clear whether The Arbors Greenfield assisted living facility has had any confirmed cases, but in an “official statement” said its main focus is prevention. There are also other apartment complexes throughout the city that house a significant number of elderly residents, including Mill House Apartments on Wells Street, Greenfield Acres Senior Living, more commonly known as the hi-rise on Congress Street, and the Weldon Associates Apartment on High Street. It is also not clear whether there have been any cases in those complexes.
“We just have to keep pushing forward and make sure we are all doing what we need to do to keep ourselves, our friends, our family, our neighbors safe,” Walker said. “If we do, we’ll get through this together.”
Reach Anita Fritz at 413-772-0261, ext. 269 or afritz@recorder.com.