Lexington County Gets 1st COVID Level Update in 2 Weeks, Still Recommended to Mask

Posted 8/12/22

Lexington is once more rated as high when it comes to the spread of coronavirus.

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Subscribe to continue reading. Already a subscriber? Sign in

Get 50% of all subscriptions for a limited time. Subscribe today.

You can cancel anytime.
 

Please log in to continue

Log in

Lexington County Gets 1st COVID Level Update in 2 Weeks, Still Recommended to Mask

Posted

After a week with no proper update to the county’s COVID-19 Community Level, Lexington is once more rated as high when it comes to the spread of coronavirus and continues to be recommended to mask in indoor public spaces by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Last week, DHEC reported that due to issues with its systems it wasn’t able to report COVID data in time last week to be included in the CDC’s updated Community Levels, which use up-to-date local info to guide counties on how to guard against the virus.

This week, Lexington is one of 32 counties in the state with a high level, which triggers the recommendation to mask indoors in public. July 29, the last time the levels were updated, there were 37 counties with a high level.

Three of Lexington County’s neighbors (Newberry, Richland and Aiken) also have a high level. The other three (Saluda, Calhoun and Orangeburg have a medium level).

Statewide, 12 counties have a medium level and two (Lee and Clarendon) have a low level.

As of July 29, Lexington’s case rate had gone up for six straight weeks. This week, it’s down, dropping to 441.7 per 100,000 people from 480.67 two weeks ago.

In the other two metrics that go into calculating Community Levels, Lexington’s numbers are down when it comes to the number of new COVID hospital admissions (dropping to 17.4 per 100,000 people from 17.7 two weeks ago) and up when it comes to the percentage of staffed impatient hospital beds occupied by COVID patients (rising to 6% from 4.8% two weeks ago).

lexington county covid-19, sc coronavirus, cdc community level, sc dhec data

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here