Douglas County has confirmed 22 new cases of COVID-19 since Wednesday, and the county’s moving 14-day case average continued to tick upward as the United States deals with rising case totals due to the more contagious delta variant of the virus.
The spread of the Delta variant in the county remains relatively low, Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health officials said Friday; however, they cautioned that sequencing the variants can take more than a week to complete, “so it’s likely we have more than that among our new cases.”
Thus far, sequencing COVID-19 tests for disease variants has found eight cases of the delta variant that is thought to be up to 60% more contagious than the original virus.
LDCPH said it knows of no cases in which a Douglas County resident has had to be hospitalized with the virus after receiving both vaccine doses — indicating that vaccines are the most effective method of reducing severe infection and hospitalization. They encouraged anyone who is eligible and has not received the COVID-19 vaccine to do so.
According to updated data from LDCPH, 68.1% of new cases in Douglas County were in people who were vaccine-eligible but unvaccinated; 12.1% were in children too young to receive the vaccination. Of the remaining new cases, 17.6% were in fully vaccinated people and 2.2% were in partially vaccinated people.
As of Friday, there were 110 known active cases of COVID-19 in the county. The 14-day rolling average daily case count was 6.71, which is a 235.5% increase over the 14-day average of 2 just two weeks prior, according to LDCPH’s COVID-19 data dashboard.
As of July 14, 61% of eligible Douglas County residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and 54% have completed the two-dose program, according to LDCPH.
The number of patients hospitalized at Lawrence Memorial Hospital increased to five on Friday, up from four on Wednesday.
You can find upcoming vaccination clinics or see pharmacies where you can get the shot at this link. It’s free, and no insurance is required.
