Board of Health reviews current COVID-19 situation in county, state

By CALLAN PUGH

City editor

The Wyandot County Board of Health met and heard about the current situation with coronavirus in the county Wednesday.

Wyandot County Public Health Director of Nursing Jamie Crawford said the county has over 200 active cases of COVID-19 currently. There are 12 currently hospitalized. The most people ever hospitalized at one time throughout the pandemic in the county is 15, Crawford noted. The hospitalizations tend to be in those in their 40s and 50s, though Crawford said she assumes that younger hospitalizations might be seen in the future if the trends continue.

South Elementary School has shut down through the end of the week due to illness, Crawford said, and an entire sports team has had to be quarantined due to the virus.

Around the state, the county with the lowest case rate per 100,000 population is at 300,000 cases per 100,000 population — three times over the CDC’s marker for high incidence rates. As of Tuesday, Dayton Children’s Hospital reported it had just two beds left for children to be seen and Lucas County reported earlier this week that it had no available places for people to be taken to be seen.

“Our numbers are growing — they’re not as high as they had been at one point last year — but they’re growing, but I think that all of this definitely shows what’s going on right now and what the health care field looks like right now,” Crawford said.

Confirmed cases still largely are made up of unvaccinated individuals with around 178 not vaccinated and around 30 who are vaccinated.

“The sickest of the sick are people that are unvaccinated,” Crawford said. “A lot of our vaccinated people that are getting tested are getting tested because they knew that they had an exposure and they’re a little bit sick — not everybody, there are some people that just are sick and get tested — but a big majority are not having many symptoms at all if they’re vaccinated.”

The health department still is holding open vaccination clinics from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fridays without an appointment and free of charge. First and second doses of Moderna are currently being offered, as are third doses for those who are immunocompromised. Crawford said planning is under way for third dose clinics for the general public — though such clinics have not yet been approved.

Many businesses are reaching out again to the health department to set up vaccination clinics for employees as the cases are surging, Crawford noted.

Regarding school nursing, Crawford said staff are training at the schools to help in the event that secretaries and other nurses are out due to illness as a back up plan. School nurses are hard at work keeping up with cases and children quarantined in the schools, Crawford noted.

Also at the meeting the board:

— Approved a private water system variance request for a home on the 300 block of East Sandusky Street in Wharton.

— Heard a report about the Ohio Traffic Safety Grant which was received for $25,000.

— Heard a report on WIC. Cases are steady. Nine new participants were taken on last month. The farmers’ market nutrition program is on hold because the farmer’s family had coronavirus. The primary formula is changing from Gerber to Enfamil.

The board adjourned into executive session to discuss employees. Coming out of the session the board approved raises for employees effective Oct. 2 in conjunction with annual reviews and the position the employee holds. There is no flat-rate raise across the board.