by Sarah Thomack
St. Joseph Post
St. Joseph Health Department Clinic Supervisor Connie Werner says, up until last week, confirmed COVID-19 cases based on a laboratory test were the only ones reported.
"The CDC came out with the ‘probable case’ definition and that means they meet a certain clinical criteria and they’re (epidemiologically) linked to a confirmed or probable case, without having a test result."
Werner says, as an example, within a family of five, one member may test positive for COVID-19, which is reported as a confirmed case. Werner says three other family members may come down with the same symptoms, but they’re not reported as confirmed cases if they don’t get tested.
“That means, take that same family - you have somebody who tested positive - now those other family members all have the same symptoms, they can’t or won’t get tested, I can now call them a probable case because they have the symptoms and they’re linked directly to the case in the home.”
Werner says the "probable case" classification can save visits to a healthcare facility.
"It gives us yet another tool to try to capture (information on) as many people as we can that might have this disease, be able to do that case tracing and give more education to more people because we can officially consider them a probable case."
The most recent information from the Health Department reports 27 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Buchanan County and three probable cases.
According to press release from the City of St. Joseph, as a result of this change in reporting, the numbers of COVID-19 cases will likely increase more substantially. At this time, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is only reporting information on confirmed cases and will not be reporting those meeting the definition of probable cases. This will result in differing numbers of cases reported in Buchanan County.