Greene County surpasses 1,000 COVID-19 cases, more than $2 million appropriated to expand contact tracing

(From the Springfield-Greene County Health Department)

The Springfield-Greene County Health Department surpassed 1,000 cases of COVID-19 in Greene County residents on Monday.

“Hitting that 1,000 cases mark is certainly an unfortunate milestone, but while that’s a big number, there is some positive news there as well,” Director of Health Clay Goddard told Springfield City Council on Monday night. 

“In recent weeks, we were getting upwards of 100 new cases every two to three days. We recently hit an all-time high of 74 cases reported in one day. Combining Sunday and Monday, we have reported only 60 new cases this week.”

As the graphic below shows, the rate of reported cases does seem to have slightly slowed. While Goddard said he was hesitant to attribute the shift in cases to Springfield’s masking ordinance, he said he hopes further evidence in coming weeks will point to masking as significantly slowing the spread of COVID-19 in our community.

On Tuesday, Springfield City Council approved the use of up to $2,748,859 of the Public Health Fund Balance—which is the government budgeting equivalent of the health department’s savings account—to pay for a contract for additional contact tracing capacity. The company, Maximus Federal Services, Inc., provides this expertise in other states.

For more information on the Health Department’s process for disease investigation, click here to view the slides presented at City Council.

For more information about COVID-19, visit our website at health.springfieldmo.gov/coronavirus.