Cases of COVID-19 rose slightly in Highland County over the past week, according to the New York Times COVID Tracker on Thursday. The tracker said the county was seeing 4.3 new cases per day, which is about 9.9 cases per 100,000 in population.
The last time The Times-Gazette reported on COVID-19 data, which was on 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 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 “low” based on cases and hospitalizations, according to the most recent Center for Disease Control (CDC). It said the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has fallen in the county, but deaths have stayed about the same.
Concerning the rest of the country, according to the CDC, the United States passed one million total deaths from COVID-19.
The New York Times COVID-19 Tracker gave a COVID-19 update Tuesday for the U.S. as well, and said that cases are rising in most states “and since many cases go uncounted in official reports, the true toll is higher than these figures show.”
The tracker said hospitalizations have been increasing too, but that they are still “well below” the peaks of winter. The tracker said conditions look to be “stabilizing” in some of the Northeastern states that were some of the first to see the surge. It also said infections and hospitalizations “are increasing quickly” across much of the South, including in Louisiana, Tennessee and West Virginia.
In other news, Highland County’s COVID-19 case rate stood at 132.1 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 below the state average of 291.1 cases per 100,000 in population over the same period, and ranks the county 76th among the state’s 88 counties in terms of the highest case rates.
In terms of vaccinations, Highland County is currently at 40.26 percent of the county’s residents that have started their vaccines, according to the ODH COVID-19 Vaccination Dashboard. The state average for “vaccine 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 there have been 7,449 “First Booster” doses and 691 “Second Booster” administered in the county on or after Aug. 12 to people that were already fully vaccinated.
Reach Jacob Clary at 937-402-2570.
