The Omicron variant of COVID-19 swept across Summit County on Monday, and the entire state followed one day later.
Summit County reported 128 new cases of the virus on Thursday, marking the third straight day with new cases in the triple digits. Before this week, the county had never reached 100 cases in a day.
Summit County Health Director Phil Bondurant said although the spike in cases is alarming, Summit County hospitalizations have remained very low. According to the county health dashboard, Summit County has only seen seven COVID-19 hospital admissions this month, and only one person has been admitted to the hospital since December 14th. All of those people were unvaccinated. According to the dashboard, 85% of eligible people in the county are fully vaccinated.
With schools scheduled to return to classes on Monday, Bondurant said many factors, including hospitalization and vaccination rates, will be closely monitored as the county weighs options for additional health measures.
“Now, again, we’re looking at hospitalizations and a number of other social factors that we have to take into account, so I don’t want it to seem as though we’re not considering every angle of this, because we are, but with school starting on Monday, people coming back from vacation out of town, out of the country, we’re going to keep a close eye and see exactly what happens as we move into the new second half of the school year,” he said.
Bondurant recommended on December 15th the county council let the mask mandate trigger currently in place for the county’s schools lapse on December 31st, citing low hospitalization and high vaccination rates in the county. The county council also unanimously voted to extend a health order through next June that empowers Bondurant and Summit County Manager Tom Fisher to issue future measures like mask mandates.
He said it’s certainly possible the county could reinstate a mandate, or put in place new health measures, should the data support that. For now, he said, the situation is constantly changing.
“One of the things that public health is, for better or worse, charged with is managing a situation that becomes increasingly complex with each passing day," Bondurant said. "There’s nothing that’s necessarily on the table, there’s nothing that’s necessarily off the table, but the toolbelt is on the hip and ready to be used should the data support action.”
Bondurant said he has been in contact with the superintendents of the county’s three school districts and will share the latest public health recommendations with them as the situation evolves.
