On Saturday, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health announced that a woman in Middlesex County was the first person in the state with a confirmed case of the Omicron variant. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that there are concerns that the new strain might be more transmissible than the Delta variant currently wreaking havoc worldwide, though information remains scant due to the low number of documented cases.
The news comes at a particularly bad time for Berkshire County.
“We are seeing that Berkshire County overall in the state has had for about seven, eight weeks now the highest 14-day average case rate," said Amy Hardt. "That's a weighted average per population.”
Hardt is a public health nurse serving Southern Berkshire County under the Tri-Town Health Department.
“We have seen just a pretty straight trajectory upward since about, I would say, mid-August," she told WAMC. "We had a slight dip in early September, but things have really continued persistently upward.”
That trend continues.
“The week following Thanksgiving, we saw cases shoot right back up even further than the week before Thanksgiving," said Hardt. "So you know, we're looking at consistent and persistent rising cases across the county as well as in South County.”
Now, with news of Omicron in Massachusetts, the county’s public health departments are mobilizing.
“The first thing we did was get the COVID taskforce together again," said Andy Cambi. "We wanted to make sure that we're speaking to our parties: The hospital, EMTs, the jail services, police department, fire department, and we wanted to make sure that we're all on the same page as far as our response.”
Cambi is Pittsfield’s Interim Public Health Director. The county’s largest community has had a masking directive for public spaces in place since early November.
“Our first response is that we're going to run a booster clinic, which is going to be held on December 18th, between 9 and 2 p.m. at the Berkshire Community College location," he told WAMC. "Registration is opened for that right now.”
In the county’s second largest community, North Adams, a new advisory was issued Monday morning in response to both rising rates and Omicron.
“The Board of Health and I put out a joint Public Health Advisory that we’re strongly advising people to wear masks in all public indoor areas, regardless of their vaccination status," said Mayor Tom Bernard. "So prior to this, we've had an indoor mask mandate in public buildings, and that remains in place. This is an advisory to the community at large that indoor masking be the habit.”
Hardt says that as usual, the virus is probably one step ahead.
“I think it's very likely that the new variant is already here," she told WAMC. "That case in Middlesex County that was announced on Saturday was a person who had recently traveled from out of state. I don't know exactly which state, but I do know that New York, where many of our visitors either come from or commute back and forth to, I do know that New York as well has had the Omicron show up already.”
The virus has also been confirmed in Connecticut.
The Tri-Town Health Department – which represents Lee, Lenox, and Stockbridge – has had a masking directive for indoor spaces in effect since September. Hardt says that’s more important than ever, and encourages Berkshire residents to think like it’s 2020 again and get tested before congregating or attending events.
“Without having sort of a statewide, emergency declared, local, municipalities and health departments like Tri-Town are kind of put in a tough position," said Hardt. "We don't have always the resources, and in some cases, it feels like even less resources than if the height of the pandemic, or what felt like the height of the pandemic, to enforce things like that. So in some ways, we really do rely on our community members, our businesses, our local government, and individuals to do the right thing and help protect other people who may be more vulnerable than we feel ourselves.”
