WESTFIELD – At the conclusion of the second full calendar year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Westfield Health Director Joseph Rouse reflected on how the last year of the pandemic played out locally, and where he thinks the pandemic response will go.

The past year in Westfield, like virtually everywhere, was bookended by the two worst periods of the pandemic thus far. Case counts exploded after Christmas and New Year’s in 2020, and seem to be doing the same in the wake of the holidays in 2021.

For a time, Rouse had believed that the vaccine rollout and the rapid decline in case counts this past spring spelled the beginning of the end of the pandemic. He harkened back to a time of phased reopenings for different businesses in Massachusetts, and the hope that surrounded “Phase 4, Step 2.”

“At that time, thinking we got to Phase 4, it was like the weight of the world lifted off our shoulders, that was supposed to be it,” said Rouse.

With case counts dropping, Rouse said that the Health Department was able to shift its efforts into getting more people vaccinated, something for which Westfield and its surrounding communities lag behind the rest of the state to this day. Had Western Massachusetts achieved a higher vaccination rate, Rouse said that he believes we would not be in the situation we are in now. Rouse said he didn’t expect the level of hesitancy some people have toward the vaccine.

“The level of vaccine resistance was just not on our radar at the time,” said Rouse.

The summer of 2021 was a relatively normal one, especially in contrast to the summer of 2020 when the world was still feeling out how to live with a pandemic without a vaccine. Case counts in Westfield largely remained in the single digits, and only a few COVID-19 deaths were reported during this time.

Things started to turn again in October, however. Much like in 2020, case counts began to rise again when the weather began to turn cold, though some still believed, for a moment, that it was just a passing phase.

“Thought for a bit that it was just an aberration,” said Rouse, “But it kept going.”

By Halloween, weekly case counts were consistently rising again, and it became clear that the pandemic had not been beaten back, but that a new wave was on the horizon. Case counts began exploding, and in the week immediately after Christmas, Westfield reported a pandemic-record 316 cases.

Though the vaccines have not been the pandemic-ending variable many once thought, they have still played a key role this year in mitigating the amount of death and suffering from the pandemic. Though the number of new cases is at a pandemic high, the number of COVID-19 deaths has consistently remained at two or fewer each week in Westfield.

The vaccines seem to prevent people from getting severely ill from COVID-19, and those with the vaccine who do become hospitalized seem to be far less likely to die from the virus than those hospitalized without the vaccine. Regardless, Rouse and other local health officials have repeatedly pointed out in recent weeks that hospitals are at, or beyond, capacity, and things are likely to get worse from the sheer number of people getting infected right now.

Looking deeper into 2022, Rouse said that he only sees two scenarios for dealing with the pandemic. The first scenario has been the Health Department’s effort all along: to get the vaccination rate in Westfield in line with the rest of the state. At the end of 2021 it was 57 percent, while Massachusetts as a whole had a vaccination rate of more than 70 percent. As time moves on, Rouse said he sees this as an unlikely dream scenario.

“I just don't see how in the world we are going to get to 70 percent in Westfield,” said Rouse.

The second scenario is a full system breakdown, which Rouse said he believes is in the process of happening now, from the sheer volume of cases the department is trying to deal with. He said between the state’s lack of desire to implement new COVID-19 control measures, the number of new cases each week, and the lack of a state contact tracing system, the situation could soon grow to the point where local health departments no longer have the resources to deal with their responsibilities.

“When the state stops contact tracing, that is a huge indicator of a system breakdown,” said Rouse, “I’m not saying it is a disaster or the world will end, but it will soon not matter what the efforts are in the public health system.”