This month, Lyon County Public Health has announced 167 new cases of coronavirus, a total matched by the last three months of data combined. Active cases, now at 151, have nearly quadrupled since the start of the month and are over 10 times where they were in mid-June, when there were 14 active cases reported.
Looking at those and other stats, as well as trends across the Central Plains and the rest of the country, Public Health officials are understandably concerned about what lies ahead for Lyon County residents. Emergency Preparedness Director Jennifer Millbern says the local situation is clearly trending in the wrong direction, and underlying stats bear that out as much as the more reported data.
Nationally, there have been more cases among people below age 30 as the delta variant has become the dominant strain, and Lyon County’s most recent data set shows the 18-to-23 age group now has the most total COVID-19 cases at 737 and the most active cases at 32. For children ages 17 and below — an increasing worry with school beginning this week for many area districts, including Emporia — there are over 480 total cases, including 24 active. Millbern says a lot of the mitigation strategies in place a year ago have been removed, which lets the virus spread more rapidly than it did before.
Along those lines, health officials don’t want to return to widespread mask mandates, social distancing methods or mass gathering limits, but Millbern says those options are being discussed, whether county-wide or on an event-specific basis.
Another concern is breakthrough cases, which involve infections among fully-vaccinated residents. At the start of the month, less than 14 percent of active cases involved breakthroughs. The percentage has climbed to almost 18 percent, but Millbern and other health officials say vaccinated patients have a much smaller chance of major infections, hospital stays or death than unvaccinated residents.
Speaking of vaccination rates, Lyon County’s data has slowly improved after a jump in vaccinations shortly after the medications became available in late January. Currently, As of Friday, Lyon County has 51.7 percent of its eligible residents ages 12 and up fully vaccinated, based on KDHE data. The percentage for the county’s total population is 44.2. Both stats lead county data for the KVOE listening area.
Lyon County vaccinations were up about three percent over the last 30 days.
Residents with questions about the coronavirus pandemic or people planning public events can call the Public Health COVID-19 Hotline at 620-208-3741 or go online to www.publichealth.lyoncounty.org.
