She says Montana will need to see declining cases for a number of weeks before the wave of deaths crashes. Pia MacDonald is an infectious disease epidemiologist with RTI International. After the peak in cases comes the consequences of that peak, more hospitalizations and deaths.įreddy: I talked to a few epidemiologists, and they also mentioned hospitalizations and deaths lag behind cases.ĭr. But it’s not just cases that we’re talking about peaking, right?Īaron: Yea, covid waves follow the same pattern. “You’d think we’d have more computational modeling power to throw at this problem, but we just don’t right now because of all of these parameters, just all this uncertainty.”Īaron: She says models specific to Montana have cases peaking this week into early October, but again, she stressed the crystal ball is pretty cloudy right now.įreddy: So there’s no model that can tell us for sure how the pandemic will play out in the coming weeks and months.
So there’s a lot of parameters into the future.”Īaron: Landguth adds that a lot has changed since last year when it comes to mask mandates, how seriously people are taking the pandemic, and then you add vaccination rates into the equation.
“They all treat how we social distance differently, how many of us mask. She explains there’s a lot of uncertainty in these models because there are just so many variables when it comes to human behavior and that’s what drives transmission. What are they saying now?Īaron: Well, a group of researchers advising the CDC put together some models saying that cases should begin to decline nationally.Įrin Landguth, a researcher at the University of Montana, says don’t drop your guard just yet. We know that school recently started, so we are curious to see what that does to our COVID numbers.”įreddy: Scott mentioned it’s too hard to predict when we could peak here in Montana, but I remember hearing a lot last fall about computer models making predictions about the timeline of COVID waves. “We certainly can’t predict when we’re going to peak with our COVID activity and the deaths. Scott last week said there were small signs that cases could be slowing down, but this week we've seen some of the largest increases in daily case numbers compared to the past couple of months. And the statewide death toll has grown by over 100 people so far in September, so it’s only getting worse at this point.įreddy: Does the state health department have any sense when Montana's current wave might peak?Īaron: Not really. That’s double what we saw at that time last year. ”Īaron: About 100 people died from COVID-19 in August, according to state data. “Our case numbers right now are kind of like what they were in October last fall, and then our deaths, we had more deaths reported this August then we did last. She says that’s about a month earlier than the big COVID wave last year. Magdalena Scott is the supervisor of the communicable disease section at the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. MTPR’s Freddy Monares and Aaron Bolton looked into what Montana can expect to come next.įreddy: Aaron to help frame where we’re at in this wave, can you remind us about when this Delta wave started?Īaron: Yeah, this really seems to have kicked off in late July, early August.
Public health officials and experts say the latest outbreak is fueled by the Delta variant. The state reached that milestone Wednesday. There are over 10,000 active COVID-19 cases in Montana.
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