Highland County has seen its biggest COVID-19 spike since February 2023, according to The New York Times COVID-19 Tracker.
Last updated on Wednesday, the tracker said that the county was averaging a two COVID-19 hospital admission rate per day on Oct. 21. The tracker said that this was the county’s biggest COVID-19 spike since Feb. 25, 2023, when the daily average COVID-19 hospital admission rate was over six per day. It also said that this spike was a 78-percent increase compared to 14 days ago.
“Data is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospitalization data is a daily average of COVID-19 patients in hospital service areas that intersect with Highland County, an area which may be larger than Highland County itself,” the tracker said. The number of daily hospital admissions shows how many patients tested positive for COVID in hospitals and is one of the most reliably reported indicators of COVID’s impact on a community.”
The tracker said that 39 percent of the total Highland County population has received the “primary series” vaccination, with 72 percent of the population ages 65 and up having taken it. It also said that 8 percent of the population has received the “Bivalent” booster, with 26 percent of the population ages 65 and up having received it.
The tracker said that the updated vaccine is still “recommended” for adults and “most children,” with 1 percent of vaccinations not specifying a home county.
Regarding Ohio, the New York Times COVID-19 Tracker said that the daily average COVID-19 hospital admission rate was 80 on Oct. 14. It said this was a 42-percent decrease from 14 days prior.
Statistics from the CDC, updated last on Monday, said that the test positivity rate in Ohio has also seen a decrease through Oct. 21, with the test positivity rate now at 9.2 percent from last week and a test volume at 10,337 people from “COVID-19 nucleic antigen amplification tests.”
In the U.S. as a whole, the New York Times COVID-19 Tracker said that all four of were on the decline. The metric falling the most evidently, according to the tracker, is the test positivity rate, which it said has now fallen by just under 6 percent from the period of Aug. 20-26.
Statistics from the CDC showed that hospital admissions nationwide are down to 16,186 people for the week ending on Oct. 21 compared to the week prior in the United States.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
