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CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cuyahoga County has reached the federal government’s threshold for “substantial” transmission of COVID-19, triggering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that vaccinated people return to wear masks indoors.
Cuyahoga County appears to have reached the CDC benchmark over the weekend, going from “moderate” transmission on Friday to “substantial” transmission on Saturday, according to CDC data.
The CDC grading system has four categories ranging from least severe to most severe: low, moderate, substantial, and high. Its indoor mask recommendation only applies to counties with “substantial” or “high” transmission – areas with new infection rates of 50 or more per 100,000 population, or positive coronavirus test results. by more than 8% in the last seven days
As of Saturday, Cuyahoga County’s seven-day average recorded 52.55 cases per 100,000 population, up from 39.51 a week ago, according to CDC data.
The county’s seven-day average for positivity rate testing was 2.93% on Saturday.
Cuyahoga County Health Commissioner Terry Allan tweeted the development on Monday morning. But the Board of Health did not immediately respond to questions from The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com about whether the designation would trigger new guidelines from local health authorities. Instead, a spokesperson said the council would hold a press conference Wednesday afternoon “where we will review current data and offer updates regarding schools and the general public.”
Last week, the CDC began recommending that fully vaccinated people hide indoors in areas with higher levels of transmission in response to a surge of COVID-19 cases across much of the United States. , powered by the more transmissible Delta variant.
The most recent data from the Board of Health – released on Friday, but reflecting cases in suburban Cuyahoga County through July 24 – appears to show an increase in the number of cases in recent weeks. The number of new cases for the week ending July 10 was 100, the following week was 245, and the week ending July 24 was 328.
Even so, the most recent CDC data shows hospital admissions for COVID-19 have declined in Cuyahoga County over the past seven days, and less than 10 people have died during that time. These trends, similar to some national trends, may reflect the fact that infections are less serious for those vaccinated. About 52% of the county’s total population are vaccinated, and about 60% of those 12 and older are vaccinated, according to CDC data.
With the recent designation of “substantial” transmission, Cuyahoga County is now among the 78.5% of counties nationwide in which the CDC recommends that vaccinated people hide indoors.
A week ago, Lorain County was the only county in northeastern Ohio to have reached the threshold for “substantial” transmission. Now Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lorain, Medina and Portage counties are all considered to have “substantial” transmission, while Summit, Lake and Ashtabula counties are considered to have “moderate” transmission.
Check out the transmission rates by county on the CDC website: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view
View: Cuyahoga County Board of Health COVID-19 Data Dashboard and city of Cleveland Data Dashboard.
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