The City of Keene has the highest number of active COVID-19 cases in the state, surpassing Manchester.
Data from the NH Department of Health and Human Services has the Elm City tracking at 62 active cases compared to Manchester’s 54, as of March 25. At this same time, the total number of cases in the state is 143, meaning Keene makes up about 43% of those cases.
Keene State College COVID-19 Team Leader Colin Burdick said those high numbers could be due to a recent outbreak in cases at Fuller Elementary School. He added that it could have contributed significantly to the city’s case count due to young students interacting with family members and parents, possibly infecting them as well.
In its first week back from spring break, Keene State had a total of 10 new cases as of March 25, with five of those being employees and five being students. Burdick said this puts the number of active cases at 15, tracking the school at about 0.5% positivity. The college’s numbers are a bit higher than they had been in the past few weeks, having averaged at about four cases per week since Feb. 27, but Burdick said he thinks this uptick can be attributed to owls having just returned from a week off, their first spring break in two years.
“To not anticipate an uptick would be naive,” Burdick said. “I just expected more; I wouldn’t call it a setback.”
Burdick said he has been using other school’s in the USNH as a “litmus test” when it comes to infection rates.
Plymouth State came back from spring break on March 14, and had 21 cases their first week back. The University of New Hampshire had 36 cases from March 17-March 23, according to their dashboards.
Just before spring break, Burdick told The Equinox he thinks we could be in the endemic of COVID-19. He thinks we could still be trending towards that landmark, although he mentioned it’s dependent on how the next few weeks go.
“I’m curious about BA.2,” Burdick said.
He is referring to the Omicron BA.2 subvariant which is taking hold in the U.S., according to various news media. The World Health Organization (W.H.O) reported March 22 that BA.2 is making up about 86% of the global case count. W.H.O. also reported in February that although less severe, BA.2 is more transmissible than the standard BA.1 Omicron variant.
Public Health Professor Dr. Jeanelle Boyer said the subvariant is looking to be about 50-60% more transmissible than BA.1.
“BA.2 has been found at UNH,” Burdick said. “But it hasn’t picked up to the point that it’s the dominant strain there.”
Evidence of the subvariant has not presented itself at Keene, Burdick said, although one Cheshire County resident tested positive for it.
Boyer said it’s only a matter of time before it comes knocking on Keene’s door.
“It absolutely could come here,” Boyer said. “It’s already the dominant strain in Massachusetts.”
Burdick added that he is concerned the new subvariant could present a spike in cases among the Keene State community. He mentioned that those who have contracted BA.1 are much less likely to be infected by the subvariant.
Boyer said she thinks the presence of BA.2 could cause a swelling of cases.
“My guess is that we will see a surge in cases, but it won’t be as bad as BA.1 due to the current immunity,” Boyer said. “If you’re vaccinated or had Omicron, the risk is much lower.”
If an outbreak of BA.2 were to occur at Keene State, Burdick said he is unsure if they would reinstate their indoor mask mandate, which was reversed on March 7, partly because of pressure from state legislature.
“I don’t know if we would reverse masking measures, but it’s the easiest thing to do,” Burdick said. “It would have to be an extreme outbreak for us to do that, because we don’t want to keep going back and forth with our policies. We need to make sure it’s the right time to do that.”
If the occasion did arise that Keene State reinstated indoor mask requirements, Burdick said that they would need to be ready to face blowback from the state.
“We would have to make sure it was the right decision,” Burdick said. “We’d need to be confident in that decision and in our justification to the state.”
Hunter Oberst can be contacted at
hoberst@kscequinox.com
