By 1812Blockhouse
The leaves were beginning to turn as summer was making its way head-first into fall.
The COVID-19 pandemic was solidifying its grip on Richland County on October 1, 2020. It was on that date that the county first saw its Public Health Advisory System level go from “Orange” to “Red.”
With the exception of a few weeks when Richland County was pegged with the highest, “Purple” level, Orange status was elusive — until Ohio Department of Health numbers were released on Thursday afternoon.
Richland County has officially returned to the land of the Orange.
What led the change was a rather dramatic decrease in new reported COVID cases. In the two weeks preceding the report, 95 new cases had been identified, which represents a level of 78.41 cases per 100,000 population. With this decrease, that indicator dropped off the county’s report.
Only the level of Non-Congregate Cases remains as an indicator, and that had a sizeable decline in the past week.
Last week, there were 141 cases within the preceding two weeks.
For comparison, on December 10 of last year, Richland County had had 1,375 cases reported in two weeks, a rate of 1134.92 per 100,000 population.
Numbers for Richland County schools and congregate care facilities also showed a very small number of new cases.
Three school districts were included — Crestview had one new staff case, Pioneer had two students test positive, and Shelby Schools also had a student case.
Among nursing homes and assisted living facilities, Crestwood Care Center reported one resident infected and there was a staff member infected at Liberty Nursing Center of Mansfield.
Image by Frauke Riether from Pixabay
