(WHNT) — The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) has new standards for assessing threat ranges and masking steerage.
“Steering that’s targeted on native hospitalization utilization, so how confused is the hospital infrastructure, together with a less complicated variety of instances per 100,000 to provide you with this degree of threat that they outline as ‘low’, ‘medium’, and ‘excessive’,” defined Dr. Wes Stubblefield with the Alabama Division of Public well being.
Final week, the CDC launched a brand new web site to supply county threat knowledge. If a county is excessive threat the CDC recommends carrying a masks in indoors in public locations.
“It locations plenty of emphasis on private accountability, realizing that some persons are at excessive threat for COVID associated issues, and so if we’re at a medium or excessive threat after which individuals needs to be particularly cautious.
In line with the CDC web site, a number of counties in North Alabama are labeled excessive threat together with Limestone, Madison and Dekalb – which means residents in these counties ought to put on masks in public, indoors.
However, Stubblefield says the state’s personal knowledge, could also be extra present than the federal figures.
“The CDC, the information gathering that they’ve finished up to now has not been notably in keeping with what we see on the bottom right here in Alabama. And we really feel our knowledge is best than what CDC is getting as a result of they’re utilizing completely different strategies. We’re getting it immediately from hospitals, from suppliers,” Dr. Stubblefield mentioned.
The plan is to replace the state’s well being guideline dashboard, utilizing CDC standards, with state figures.
“So, there’s already been conversations with our knowledge staff and our epidemiologists to consider how we might change our dashboard to look extra like that (the CDC web site), however utilizing Alabama particular knowledge in order that the data…What we have to do is work out, is how we will finest use our knowledge to make knowledgeable choices for Alabamians in order that persons are getting the very best info potential. Whereas the CDC might say a county continues to be within the excessive threat, our knowledge might present that it’s truly within the medium threat,” Stubblefield mentioned.
We will see state figures altering even over the previous few days. On Friday, all however two North Alabama counties had been thought of at excessive threat for COVID-19 transmission. Monday, the image could be very completely different, with solely three North Alabama counties labeled as excessive threat.
Stubblefield says the state well being division is assessing how the state web site could be modified. There is no such thing as a date set for when the web site might be up to date.
Within the meantime, ADPH is asking individuals to go to the CDC web site for masking suggestions.