“Obviously we are not pleased to see that we have the highest rate of incidence in Ohio,” Kyle Trout, communications coordinator for the Clark County Combined Health District said. “The health department is urging all individuals, vaccinated or not, to continue masking, social distancing and practicing good hand washing techniques.”
The second-highest county in the state, Crawford, had 219 cases per 100,000 between the same time frame, according to ODH.
Neighboring Champaign County was also ranked among the top five highest counties in the state. The county saw 203.2 cases per 100,000 over the last two weeks. Last week, Champaign County was ranked second in the state for its incidence rate, reporting 226.3 cases per 100,000.
No other counties in the Miami Valley were ranked within the top 10.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced about a month ago that if the state could get below 50 cases per 100,000 people for two weeks, all public health orders, including the mask mandate, will be lifted. As of Monday, just three of Ohio’s 88 counties met that requirement.
During his press conference on Monday, DeWine said that statewide COVID-19 cases are “starting to plateau.”
“Cases were dropping for a while and have leveled out - but we’ll have to keep watching this,” DeWine said.
The governor also said the state was vaccinating for COVID-19 “at a good clip,” and he hopes the vaccinations will help to cut down on new case spikes.
Trout agreed with DeWine and said the health district “intends to continue vaccinating and increase the rate at which we are vaccinating.”
As of Monday, 35,028 Clark County residents had received at least one vaccine shot, according to data from ODH. That’s about 26% of the county’s population. Over 16% of the county’s population has been fully vaccinated.
Clark County has seen a total of 312 confirmed cases over the last two weeks, according to ODH.
Between March 12 and Friday, the county recorded 135 confirmed cases of the virus, according to data from the Clark County Combined Health District. That’s the highest number of weekly cases in the county since the week of Jan. 22.
Cases in Clark County have seen an uptick over the last month. Prior to that, the county had been seeing a steady week-over-week drop in COVID-19 cases, starting in late December.
“Our low point, since maybe June, was 67 cases per week. We were up to 97 cases per week then 100 cases per week and now we’re back up to 135 cases this week,” Clark County Combined Health District Commissioner Charles Patterson said on Friday during this weekly COVID-19 county update. “So it looks like we are not out of the woods yet.”
Clark County had 12,788 cases and 279 deaths of the coronavirus as of Monday afternoon, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
Facts & Figures:
1: Where Clark County ranks out of Ohio’s 88 counties for the highest incidence of COVID-19 cases
232.7: COVID-19 cases in Clark County per 100,000 people
135: COVID-19 cases confirmed in Clark County last week
Source: Clark County Combined Health District
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