LLCHD reduces the COVID-19 risk dial to yellow

LINCOLN, Nebraska (KOLN) – Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird and the Lincoln-Lancaster County Department of Health announced on Tuesday that the COVID-19 risk indicator changed from orange to high yellow, indicating that the risk of the virus was spreading in the community is moderate.

“Yellow means that the risk of spreading COVID-19 is moderate,” said Mayor Gaylor Baird. “Think of the yellow on the dial as the yellow of a street lamp, signaling you to be cautious. We still need to be careful. We don’t want yellow to turn red. We need to continue the three W’s and avoid the three C’s. Still, this is still just one of the best news we’ve had to share with you in the past few months. “

The dial has not been in yellow since the end of August. Before changing to orange in mid-January, the display went red for 10 consecutive weeks. In the color-coded display, red represents the highest risk of spread of COVID-19 and green represents the lowest risk. The dial is updated every Tuesday.

Several changes to the Targeted Health Measure will go into effect on Friday, February 12 and will be in effect until March 12:

The meetings will be limited to no more than 75% of the internal occupation and in confined external spaces, with no limit to the total number of individuals.

Events with more than 500 people can occur after receiving LLCHD approval.

Occupancy in restaurants, bars and other food establishments will increase to 75% of occupancy. Parties will continue to be limited to eight or fewer individuals and must remain at least 6 feet apart. Individuals will no longer need to remain seated; however, whenever individuals are not seated at their tables, they should wear a face shield, unless they are also eating or drinking.

Each young participant can have four spectators and a venue can seek LLCHD approval to allow additional spectators if the venue can accommodate more capacity.

Groups of young sports spectators are still limited to eight or fewer individuals, and groups must remain at least 6 feet apart.

Concessions at youth sporting events will be permitted.

Gym occupancy increased to 75% of occupancy.

Nurseries will be allowed to resume normal operations, subject to enhanced sanitation and COVID-19 mitigation included in DHM.

Risk Dial’s position is based on various local indicators and information from the previous three weeks.

The number of new weekly cases dropped from 1,207 in the week ending January 1 to 425 in the week ending February 6, a decline of almost 65%. Lancaster County now has 12 consecutive days with the number of new daily cases below 100. The seven-day continuous average of new daily cases also dropped from 144 cases on January 22 to 61 on February 6.

In the past five weeks, the rate of positivity has dropped from an almost historic high of 32.7% to 20.3% in the week ended on February 6.

The number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized locally decreased from 116 on 16 January to 45 last weekend, a drop of more than 60%. The seven-day moving average for hospitalizations for COVID has also decreased for 20 consecutive days

LLCHD announced that 54 laboratory confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Lancaster County, bringing the community total to 27,256. The total number of deaths in the community remains at 209.

Visit lincoln.ne.gov/COVID19dashboard to access a dashboard that summarizes Lancaster County COVID-19 data. LLCHD also released the following information:

Recoveries: 11,207

Weekly positivity rate:

January 31 to February 6: 20.4%

February 7th to 9th: not available

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 positive patients: 42 with 27 from Lancaster County (four on fans) and 15 from other communities (one on a fan).

Vaccine records: 71,650

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