COVID-19 cases in Highland County have gone down, according to the New York Times COVID Tracker, which said Tuesday that the county was seeing 16 new cases per day, which is about 37 cases per 100,000 in population.

The last time The Times-Gazette reported on COVID-19 data, which was on Aug. 15, The New York Times COVID Tracker said the county was seeing 23 new cases per day, about 53 cases per 100,000 in population.

The tracker gave some of the latest trends for the county. It said that the community level of COVID-19 in the county is “medium” based on cases and hospitalizations, according to the most recent Center for Disease Control (CDC) update on Aug. 18.

It said the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has risen in the county, but deaths have stayed about the same. It also said that the test positivity rate for the county is “very high, suggesting that cases are being significantly undercounted.”

The New York Times COVID-19 Tracker gave a COVID-19 update on Aug. 19 for the U.S. as well. It said that “known” daily cases continue to go down and have fallen below the 100,000 per day threshold, also falling 19 percent compared to two weeks ago.

“The number of hospitalized patients with Covid is declining, down more than 6 percent from the recent peak in late July,” the tracker said. “But about half of states are still seeing increasing or flat hospitalization numbers, meaning they may not yet have turned the corner.”

The tracker also said the number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 is “much lower” compared to this point last year, with the fall coming because of multiple factors like the Omicron variants being less severe and the higher availability of treatments for the virus.

In other news, Highland County’s COVID-19 case rate stood at 565.3 cases per 100,000 in population over the previous two weeks, according to the Ohio Department of Health Coronavirus Dashboard, which was last updated Thursday. The case rate was above the state average of 376.9 cases per 100,000 in population over the same period, and ranks the county 13th among the state’s 88 counties in terms of the highest case rates.

In terms of vaccinations, Highland County is currently at 40.57 percent of the county’s residents that have started their vaccines, according to the ODH COVID-19 Vaccination Dashboard, which was last updated Thursday. The state average for vaccine started is 63.61 percent.

In terms of completed vaccines, the state average is 58.96 percent, while the Highland County average is 37.60 percent.

The dashboard also said there have been 7,734 first booster doses and 1,427 second booster doses administered in the county on or after Aug. 12, to people that were already fully vaccinated.

Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.