Cases of COVID-19 rose slightly in Highland County over the past week, according to The New York Times’ COVID tracker Thursday. The tracker said the county was seeing 4.3 new cases per day, which translates to about 9.9 cases per 100,000 people.
The last time The Times-Gazette reported COVID-19 data was May 16, the New York Times COVID tracker said the county was seeing 3.0 new cases per day, about 7.0 cases per 100,000 Resident.
The tracker provided some of the latest trends for the county. According to the most recent Center for Disease Control (CDC), the level of COVID-19 in the county community is “low” based on cases and hospitalizations. It said the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients had fallen in the county, but deaths had remained about the same.
In relation to the rest of the country, the United States has surpassed one million deaths from COVID-19 overall, according to the CDC.
The New York Times COVID-19 Tracker also issued a COVID-19 update for the US on Tuesday, saying cases are increasing in most states “and since many cases are uncounted in official reports, the true number is higher than these numbers show.”
The tracker said hospital admissions have also increased, but that they are still “well below” the peaks of the winter. The tracker said conditions are “stabilizing” in some of the northeastern states, which were among the first to experience the surge. It also said infections and hospitalizations were “increasing rapidly” in much of the South, including Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia.
In other news, Highland County’s COVID-19 case rate for the past two weeks has been 132.1 cases per 100,000 residents, according to the Ohio Department of Health’s coronavirus dashboard, last updated Thursday. The case rate during the same period was below the state average of 291.1 cases per 100,000 people and ranks 76th among the state’s 88 counties for the highest case rates.
In terms of immunizations, Highland County currently sits at 40.26 percent of county residents who have started vaccinating, according to the ODH COVID-19 Vaccine Dashboard. The national average for “vaccination started” is 62.74 percent.
In terms of completed vaccines, the state average is 58.23 percent, while the Highland County average is 37.22 percent.
The dashboard also said that on or after August 12, 7,449 “first booster” doses and 691 “second booster” doses were given to people who were already fully vaccinated.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
