OHIO, USA — Ohio reported its third straight day of more than 300 new COVID-19 infections on Friday.
While those numbers are well below what the state was seeing in May, the three-day streak is the first of its kind since early June. Ohio's positivity rate, which had fallen to 1.1 percent, climbed for the second straight day to 1.5%.
The number of people in the hospital because of COVID-19 fell to a weekly low of 200. This number includes 56 people in the ICU and 44 on ventilators. However, hospitalizations are a lagging indicator, so that trend is unlikely to continue if cases keep rising.
The Lucas County Health Department is reporting no concerns and has no obvious outbreaks, according to the state's ZIP Code data. However, several locations in western Ohio have seen an uptick in cases.
The cases per 100,000 during the past two weeks is more than 75 in Montpelier, Bryan and Paulding. The Paulding area has a rate of 137.8, the fifth-highest number in the state during that two-week time period.
Williams County Health Commissioner Jim Watkins said he is watching the numbers closely.
"During the past week we haven't necessarily seen more people coming in for tests, but we are having a higher number come back positive. That's a concern, obviously," he said.
Williams County's positivity rate has climbed to 2.5%, well above the state average.
Watkins said there is no evidence that the Delta variant is to blame, but the current positive results will need to be examined by the state.
However, a large concern of his is the county's vaccination rate of 36.8% of residents with at least one dose.
"The biggest thing for us is encouraging people to get vaccinated," he said. "That is the solution."
Williams and Paulding have two of the lowest vaccination rates in the state. Paulding is at 34.63%, well below the state's rate of 48.04 percent of residents with at least one dose of vaccine. By comparison, Lucas County is at 47.28%, Wood County is 52.27%, and Ottawa County is at 52.77% percent.
Although there is no clear evidence that the Delta variant is becoming entrenched in the region - or even the state - the variant is causing case increases in many areas of the country with low vaccination rates. The vaccine does offer protection, but the level of protection is lower than against other currently circulating variants.