With Covid-19 now racing through the Vineyard community, the Martha’s Vineyard boards of health issued a public health message Tuesday urging Islanders to take all precautionary steps to protect themselves from infection.
“We are currently experiencing rapid and extensive spread of Covid-19, due primarily to the highly-transmissible Omicron variant,” the six boards of health said in a statement. “While the young, healthy and vaccinated are likely to experience mild or moderate illness, the unvaccinated, the elderly and the immunocompromised remain at high risk for severe illness and hospitalization.”
The statement urged all adults and children over the age of five to become fully vaccinated, and it encouraged residents to wear N95 or K95 masks instead of cloth or paper surgical masks. An indoor mask mandate remains in place in every Island town.
“The N95 and KN95 masks have special filters that block the fine aerosols that frequently spread Covid and they have a tighter fit with less gapping,” the statement said. It also said:
From left, Maura Valley, Island Health Care executive director Cynthia Mitchell, IHC public health officer Kathleen Samways.
— Ray Ewing
“People should carefully consider which social gatherings are worth the risk and which are not. When indoors wear a high-quality, well-fitting mask except when with family and those in your pods. Whenever possible, avoid crowded, poorly ventilated spaces.”
Speaking to the Gazette by phone Tuesday afternoon, Tisbury health agent Maura Valley said while contact tracing remains an all-out effort, the high volume of cases have been a game changer for public health officials.
“With these numbers you can’t possibly contact everyone who tests positive,” said Ms. Valley, who has been the spokesman for the boards of health throughout the pandemic. “We’re not going to stop the spread through contact tracing; it’s more reaching out to people with information at this point,” she added.
Ms. Valley said while the Omicron variant has not yet been positively identified on the Island, “just based on the transmission numbers it’s pretty safe to assume that it is [Omicron],” she said.
Ms. Valley said the virus is now widespread throughout the Island community, with no particular hot spots.
“Yes, there are cases in the schools, in students and in staff . . . but it’s throughout the Island population,” she said. “With community transmission you can’t say where it is . . . there’s such widespread community transmission that what we are concerned about is younger children who are unable to be vaccinated, and people who are at risk for more adverse effects from the virus. Those are the people our contact tracers are focusing on.”
Led by coordinators Marina Lent and Betsy Van Landingham, the small team of contact tracers are working practically around the clock, Ms. Valley said.
She said contact tracers are sending a text or an email to every case they become aware of. “But we are looking at the list and trying to reach out to anybody who falls into those [high risk categories].”
As of Tuesday the Island had logged 682 positive cases since the start of the new year, a record high.
Ms. Valley said rapid home testing has been a factor with more people rapid testing and reporting their information. Early this month TestMV, the free testing site on the Island, launched a website for home testers to report their information.
Ms. Valley said the site has seen a robust response.
“The more people that let us know, we can sense the true positivity rate for the Island, and it’s high,” she said.
She said the public health statement issued Tuesday afternoon is an effort to give Islanders practical information and urge common sense.
“It’s about weighing the risk of what you’re doing. You’re going to go to work, to school, the grocery store,” Ms. Valley said. “Think twice about going to that crowded party . . . the bigger groups . . . and the closer you are . . . give some thought to what you are doing.”
She declined to make any predictions for the future.
“I threw my crystal ball away a long time ago,” the veteran health agent said.
But she said in the near term health agents are meeting daily and facilitating the Islandwide distribution of rapid test kits, which will take place weekly going forward.
Another 10,800 kits were delivered to Island Health Care, the Vineyard’s federally qualified community health center, Tuesday morning. Distribution begins Wednesday.
