Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Director Pat Lopez on Tuesday announced the DHM has been extended. Residents will now be required to wear masks indoors through November 24. The DHM continues to require that all individuals ages two and older – regardless of vaccination status – wear a mask indoors.
Lopez says while they have reached their goal of getting 75 percent of residents 16 years of age and older fully vaccinated, hospitalizations due to the Delta variant remain too high. There were 86 patients in the hospital as of Tuesday with 53 of them from Lancaster County. There have been 18 deaths so far this month from COVID-19.
Lopez says the positivity rate is also too high at 9-10 percent. She says the goal is to have it in the 5-7 percent range The COVID-19 risk dial remains in elevated yellow, which means moderate risk of COVID-19 spread and impact in the community.
The position of the Risk Dial is based on multiple local indicators and information from the previous three weeks.
- The seven-day rolling average of new daily cases has leveled off at about 80 cases a day for the first three weeks of October. Lopez said LLCHD would like to see a sustained average of 40 to 45 cases a day.
- The community positivity rate has remained in the 9% to 10% range for the past 10 weeks. Lopez said a rate down in the 5% to 7% range would indicate that the risk of transmission is reduced.
- The seven-day rolling average of hospitalizations has been below 100 patients since October 6, but Lopez said that number is still too high and local hospital capacity remains a serious concern for the entire community.
- 18 local residents have died from COVID-19 in October. Ten were unvaccinated.
The DHM includes exceptions. For more information on the DHM, visit covid19.lincoln.ne.gov or call 402-441-6280. For general information on COVID-19, visit the website or call the Health Department hotline at 402-441-8006.