The Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department announced Tuesday that the COVID-19 Risk Dial will move to from low-orange to elevated-yellow. The dial has not been in yellow since the week of August 10. The yellow position on the dial means that the risk of the virus spreading and the impact on the community is moderate.
Health Director Pat Lopez said the number of new COVID-19 cases began to drop shortly after the indoor mask requirement was implemented August 26. The daily case average has decreased 46% from the peak of 139 cases per day on August 29, to 75 cases on October 7.
Lopez also compared the Lancaster County data with Douglas County case numbers. From the week ending September 4 until the week ending October 2, local weekly cases dropped 43%, from 1,024 to 589. Over the same period, Douglas County cases dropped 20%, from 1,406 to 1,119.
The position of the Risk Dial is based on multiple local indicators and information from the previous three weeks.
- Twelve local residents have died from COVID-19 in October. Eight were unvaccinated and four were vaccinated.
- The number of Lancaster County residents hospitalized with COVID-19 has dropped, but the number from outside the county has increased, so the seven-day rolling average of hospitalizations has stayed steady at about 100 patients for the past month. Today, 98 COVID-19 patients are hospitalized locally, with 19 on ventilators.
- The community positivity rate has dropped from about 11% at the beginning of September to about 8.5% at the end of last week.
In Lancaster County, 74.4% of residents ages 16 and over are fully vaccinated. For all 319,000 County residents, 60% are fully vaccinated. Some of those who are still unvaccinated are not yet eligible like children under 12, but there are still about 66,000 residents who are eligible for COVID-19 vaccine but have not yet received it.
For general information on COVID-19, visit covid19.lincoln.ne.gov or call the Health Department hotline at 402-441-8006.