Free vaccinations boosters are readily available

Lawrence County is now rated the second highest in the state of Ohio for COVID-19 case rates, according to numbers released last week.

In a post on their Facebook page on Friday, the Lawrence County Health Department said the rank had changed from the previous week, when the county was ranked 14th of the state’s 88 counties.

For the week of Jan. 20-27, the department said there were 903 new cases of the virus reported, 18 hospitalizations and two deaths.

For the period from Jan. 1- Jan. 27, the county has seen 3,737 cases of the virus, 82 hospitalizations and 15 deaths.

Since the pandemic began, there have been 15,751 cases of the virus, 826 hospitalizations and 195 deaths in Lawrence County.

That means 24 percent of the cases Lawrence has seen to date have occurred in just the past month, and six percent of the pandemic total of the last two years has been in just the past week.

The county is currently ranked “High” for community transmission level, according to criteria from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

According to the Ohio Department of Health, 34.31 percent of the population in Lawrence County is fully vaccinated. Using the CDC’s number’s 50.6 percent is fully vaccinated.

The difference in the numbers is due to those who may have been vaccinated out of state. Those providers are not required to report their numbers to the state health department, but they are reported to the CDC by a resident’s zip code.

The county health department is continuing to offer free vaccinations and booster shots. For more information on those, visit the department’s Facebook page or call 740-532-3962.