Lorain County Updates

Lorain County’s COVID-19 cases continued to decline this week. From March 5 to March 11, the county reported 189 cases and 5 hospitalizations. These numbers follow 209 cases last week, and multiple weeks of decreasing caseloads.

Lorain County Public Health unveiled a new online scheduling system for vaccine appointments. As of March 11, 31,764 people in Lorain County have completed the vaccination process which accounts for about 10.25 percent of the county’s population. 

Lorain County remains classified by the Ohio Department of Health at “Red Alert Level 3 Public Emergency” out of a public emergency scale of four for “very high exposure and spread.” Level Three counties are advised to limit activities as much as possible. In order to move to a lower level, Lorain County must continue to lower per capita case levels and lower community spread outside of congregate settings.

Statewide Updates

ODH reported 5,942 new statewide COVID-19 cases and 220 hospitalizations in the last week.

Last week, Governor Mike DeWine announced that when Ohio reaches 50 cases per 100,000 people for a two-week period, he will lift all COVID-19-related health orders. So far, only one county in Ohio has met DeWine’s benchmark. As of last Wednesday, Ohio had been at 179 cases per 100,000 people for the previous two weeks, and dropped to 156 as of March 10. If the state continues with its current trend of consistent downward case counts, it could possibly meet this benchmark in April. The governor has stated that he estimates Ohio will reach the desired benchmark by July 4. 

The CDC announced guidelines for Americans who have received a vaccination on Monday. The recommendations include visiting with other fully vaccinated people without having to abide by COVID-19 safety precautions; visiting with unvaccinated people from one other household without having to abide by COVID-19 safety precautions, provided that no one in the other household is at high risk for severe disease; and foregoing quarantine and tests after coming into contact with a COVID-positive person if they do not have COVID-19 symptoms. 

People are deemed fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the complete dose of a vaccine. Currently, only 10.2 percent of the entire U.S. population is fully vaccinated. 

As of March 11, 18.46 percent of Ohio residents have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. DeWine announced earlier this week that he would expand vaccine eligibility to the 1D group, which includes people with Type 2 diabetes and those with end-stage renal disease. He also opened up stage 2B which allows access for anyone 50 and older. For more information on vaccine eligibility, you can check out Ohio’s newly launched vaccine eligibility tool. 

More information on COVID-19 in Ohio is available through the ODH and LCPH websites, where case numbers are updated every weekday at 2 p.m.

Oberlin College Updates

This week, Oberlin College once again had zero new COVID-19 cases out of the 601 tests administered. This is the third week in a row with no new COVID-19 cases. 

Should a student receive a vaccination, they are asked to submit documentation of immunization to Student Health. This will allow the College to monitor the number of people vaccinated on campus and make adjustments to ObieSafe procedure.