Chart Shows How New COVID-19 Cases Have Spiked In County

By MARK EVANS

mevans@stegenherald.com

During the first 17 weeks that cases were reported, a total of 29 positive cases were recorded. That broke down to just 1.7 new cases per week. The high for one week for some time was four cases, while there were five weeks in April and May, in which there were no new cases.

Advocates of a total shutdown would likely point to the county being essentially shut down from late March until early May as evidence that the restrictive policies helped.

From April 10 through May 22, only two new cases were reported On May 29, some two weeks after the state’s gradual reopening began numbers started rising slightly, with 15 new cases reported  from May 29 through July 3, just over two per week.

The real growth began with the July 24 numbers, when the number of be cases rose from four each of the two previous weeks, to nine.

After weeks of six and nine cases, the figures exploded in August, with 18 reported on August 14, 21 on August 21 and a high-water mark of 27 on August 28. Another 19 were reported on Sept. 4.

During a recent County Commission meeting, the Ste. Genevieve County Health Department’s Julie Flieg said the  spike was not unexpected.

“We opened up again,” she said. “We knew when we opened up, we were going to have some more problems. I know we have 100 cases here. People are fearful. You know it was going to happen because people were going [places].”