WILMINGTON — Due presumably to the Omicron variant and its high transmission rates, local health officials forecast that Clinton County’s total COVID cases this January will surpass the total number of cases here for all of 2020.
As of Monday morning, Clinton County had recorded about 2,130 confirmed cases this month alone. That compares to a case count total in 2020 of 2,366, said Public Nursing Director Monica Wood, RN, with the Clinton County Health District.
Last year the cumulative case total was 5,058 local cases.
“So we doubled our case count [from 2020] in 2021,” she observed.
At Monday’s monthly meeting of the Clinton County Board of Health, there also were statistics reported about the local vaccination rates.
As of Friday, 52 percent of Clinton Countians had been vaccinated with at least one dose (that’s 21,725 residents of the county’s overall population of 41,968), stated Clinton County Health Commissioner Pam Walker-Bauer.
Forty-eight percent of the population have completed their primary COVID-19 vaccination series with either Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J (that’s 19,968 residents).
And 20 percent of Clinton County residents have received a booster shot (that’s 8,457 people).
“We keep moving forward there. Hopefully, people will keep showing up,” said the health commissioner.
The Clinton County Health Department continues to hold COVID vaccination clinics on Tuesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons. Walker-Bauer said they had been busy until last week when “we were a little slower.”
They plan to continue the clinics into February with the same schedule of Tuesdays from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m., and Wednesdays from 1 to 4 p.m. There’s one Tuesday toward the end of February that is booked for the Farmers Bureau which will have an educational class.
“We are seeing new first-doses. We continue to see a few of those here and there, that’s exciting,” said Walker-Bauer.
The breakdown for the brands of vaccines administered by the Clinton County Health District last year shows 14,099 doses of Pfizer; 2,550 doses of Moderna; 849 doses of J&J; and 434 doses of the Pfizer pediatric (medicine dealing with children) vaccine.
This month so far there have been 39 doses of pediatric COVID vaccine administered by the local health department.
Clinton County Board of Health Chair Terri Thobaben asked about hospitalized flu cases. Wood said in 2021, there were a total of two, occurring in October and December.
The previous year in 2020 there were 20 cases of hospitalized Clinton Countians, all occurring between January and March.
Reach Gary Huffenberger at 937-556-5768.
