Lincoln Lancaster County Health Director Pat Lopez says three more people have died from COVID-19. All three deaths reported Tuesday were men, one in his 40’s, one in his 50’s and the other in his 70’s. Two of the three men were not vaccinated.
Lopez says there has been a change in the number of COVID-19 cases recently. “We’ve seen cases start to level off, which is encouraging, but it’s still too early to tell if this is a trend,” Lopez says. She says the local situation remains critical. She says 30 people were lost to COVID-19 in August. Nine of them were under 60 years of age and all nine were unvaccinated.
Two of the people were in their 50s, three were in their 40s, three more were in their 30s and one person in their 20s. Lopez says there has also been a high number cases involving children. “Since July there have been outbreaks in 20 different child care centers in Lincoln and in the last two weeks there have been close to 500 cases in school aged children.”
The Risk Dial remains in the mid-orange level for a third straight week, an indication of continued high risk of spread. She says the seven day rolling average is showing signs of flattening. At the beginning of August there were 58 new cases per day. By the end of August it grew to 136. As of Tuesday it has fallen to 127 cases per day.
She reiterated that vaccination remains the best protection against the virus and it can help protect people who have already had the virus from re-infection. Nearly 70% of Lancaster County’s eligible population is now fully vaccinated, the highest rate in the state.