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BELLEFONTE -- The Centre County commissioners got a COVID-19 progress report during Tuesday's regular meeting.
Mount Nittany Health Executive Vice President System Development and Chief Strategy Officer Tom Charles addressed the commissioners, speaking at length about the ebbs and flows of the deadly virus and the need to get the community vaccinated.
According to Charles, the county has been on a roller coaster of sorts when it comes to the numbers of cases of COVID-19 in the community.
"We've been at this for some time, I don't have to tell everybody that. It's good to look back and remember where we've been on this journey," Charles said. "We think about this in almost four waves of cases in the county -- last fall, Thanksgiving, around Christmas and then bumping up a little bit after the first of the year."
Charles also talked about the uptick in cases in March and April.
"We found ourselves in a stretch of time here in the last couple of months where we've just been at an elevated, steady state of the number of new cases. We've been riding the wave up and down in the county. We're back on the way down again … I think the numbers continue to drop. That is encouraging," Charles said.
He also talked about the amount of hospitalizations that have taken place since the pandemic began.
"We have hospitalized more than 1,100 individuals for COVID since we began tracking this. A large number of people, largely people from the community. This has not been contained to one particular area. It's been the result of generalized spread across the community," Charles said.
According to Charles, the number of hospitalizations began to rise last fall and reached a peak in the month of December. It dipped in January and February before rising again in March and April.
There were around 50 people hospitalized, on average, during December. The average age was around 70, but also dipped into the lower to mid 60s at times, Charles said.
The dropping case count coupled with the state's restrictions being eased on Monday, May 31 means that things should start to return to normal over the summer months.
"Obviously, we're all desirous of getting back to the point where we can have as much normalcy as we possibly can," Charles said.
He said that it has been "quite the year" for Mount Nittany Health.
"(We have been) navigating our way through all of this and at the same time managing the services that we provide to the community on a regular basis," Charles said.
On the vaccine front, Charles said that Mount Nittany Health has vaccinated and scheduled more than 42,000 doses of vaccine.
"We have been delighted to lead the vaccination effort in the county. Our team has done a tremendous job of getting individuals scheduled and vaccinated," Charles said.
He urged all county residents to get the vaccine as soon as possible.
"Everybody who has the opportunity to get vaccinated … it's safe, we encourage you to do that. We have seen the demand for vaccinations soften … it's a cause for concern. We would love to see the county get to the point where we have high levels of vaccination. Again, it's a critical part of getting us back to normalcy," Charles said.
The vaccine is available to all now and those interested can sign up at www.mountnittanycoronavirus.org.
The county commissioners thanked Charles and his team for all their hard work during the pandemic.
"The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter," said chair Michael Pipe. "We appreciate, from the bottom of our hearts, all the work that you and your team at the health system have done to help us weather the storm."
Pipe said that he's pleased with the job the county has done thus far.
"It's a good time to reflect, look at the data, recognize that we are seeing hospitalizations decrease, vaccinations increase, but we're not quite finished yet … we're close to the seventh-inning stretch, but we're still not out of this quite yet," Pipe said.
Commissioner Mark Higgins also lauded Mount Nittany Health and urged county residents to get vaccinated.
"It's good to remind people that the demand for vaccines is softening … get yourself an appointment in the next couple of days," Higgins said.
Commissioner Steve Dershem joined his fellow commissioners in thanking Charles and his staff.
"I just want to thank you and your staff for an amazing job through some very trying times. We want to give you a big high five," Dershem said.
The commissioners will not meet next week due to Election Day. The next regularly scheduled meeting will take place at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, May 25. The meeting will be held via Zoom and televised live on C-NET.