As long as Franklin County is in the CDC’s red category for high community transmission, Columbus isn’t getting rid of its mask mandate.
Before Mayor Andrew Ginther lifts the mandate, the county needs to come down to the CDC’s yellow level for moderate community transmission, and stay there for four weeks, said spokeswoman Melanie Crabill.
The CDC uses county data to calculate local rates.
To move closer to moderate transmission levels, the CDC wants to see the area’s viral test positivity rate of about 14% cut down by about half. And, the case rate based on population needs to drop by about 80%.
Right now, the case rate in Franklin County is at 295 per 100,000 people. To be considered moderate transmission, the rate should be between 10 to 49 cases per person.
None of the counties in Ohio are at that level. Along with Franklin County, 85 other Ohio counties are at the red level. Lake and Geauga counties are the only two listed below that, at the orange level for substantial transmission.
The mayor’s office started the mandate with an executive order last September. Since then, nearly 800 violation complaints were filed with the city. According to Crabill, the city conducted 96 inspections and sent out 12 warning letters. She said compliance with the mandate is at 88%.
Cases have been trending down.
The county’s positivity rate is down 4.5% compared to the week before, according to CDC data reported Thursday. And during the same one-week period, cases numbers decreased 55%. Hospital admissions are also down by 29%.
The case rate per 100,000 people in Franklin County is significantly lower than it was a month ago. While now under 300, the rate was over 2,000 in early January and just under 1,000 at the end of January, according to the Ohio Department of Health.
The Franklin County ZIP code with the highest rate of cases based on population is the ZIP code for The Ohio State University’s campus, 43210. The ZIP code has a two-week rate of about 1,900 cases per 100,000 people. During that period, 242 cases were reported among the population of 12,500.
The second highest rate based on population is nearly three times lower at about 650 cases per 100,000 people in the neighboring 43221 ZIP code in the Upper Arlington neighborhood. There, the population is higher at 32,900, and there were 215 cases over a two-week period.
