Ottawa County: Raised to red level 3 pandemic advisory

By: 
Staff writer

Following the Ohio Department of Health’s Public Health Advisory System, Ottawa County has been elevated to the Red Level 3 Advisory for the first time since the pandemic began.
The county has triggered four of the indicators established to elevate the county from orange to red.
Ottawa County currently meets the following indicators:
• More than 50 cases per 100,000 residents in the past two weeks
• New cases trajectory increased over a 5-day period
• Proportion of cases not in a congregate setting
• Sustained increase in emergency department visits for COVID-like illness
The advisory system is designed to provide an alert to the community in regard the current exposure and spread of COVID-19 so that people can make informed decisions to protect the most vulnerable or at risk population. The Red Level 3 alert indicates the county is experiencing very high exposure and spread.
The county currently exceeds the Centers for Disease Control’s threshold for high incidence and is seeing a sustained increase in new cases.
Since the beginning of October, there have been more than 100 cases to date which is triple the number of cases that Ottawa County had last month. The current positive cases in Ottawa County indicates that 75 percent of the cases are in the age range of 40-79 while less than 10 percent are school aged children and no confirmed outbreaks in congregate settings.
The county is not currently experiencing any large outbreaks and the cases as identified are located throughout the county.
About 12 percent of cases reported in October have required hospitalization with the age ranging from 44-87 years of age with 50 being the median age.
About 92 percent of hospitalizations have co-morbidities such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes as most commonly reported.
While it is difficult to identify any one reason for the significant increase in cases, the county health department has identified several cases that have very mild symptoms.
Persons experiencing new or worsening of COVID-like symptoms, including sinus headache, congestion, fever, dry cough, sore throat, are advised to stay home and away from others.

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