<p>Land</p>

Land

ROCKINGHAM — With concern over the Omicron variant brewing, Richmond County leadership does not currently have any plans to implement COVID-19 precautions at the level they did last year.

County Manager Bryan Land said he and Health Director Cheryl Speight have been on daily calls to stay up to date on the latest information regarding the virus and its variants. So far, the county has only canceled its annual staff Christmas dinner due to the risk of spreading COVID-19, and will instead hold smaller gatherings within each department.

“Currently we don’t have any plans in place to revert back to previous precautionary measures, however, that could change if the outlook worsens,” Land said in an email Thursday.

Last winter, all government buildings were closed to the public, gatherings were limited to 10 people in a room, and Governor Roy Cooper’s mask mandate was in effect.

Since Aug. 2, around the time that the Delta surge brought COVID-19-related death rates back to peak levels for the county, anyone entering a county building has been required to have on a face mask covering their mouth and nose. Prior to that, local governments had relaxed somewhat: deaths hovered in the 90’s from early March to late July, the number of hospitalizations had reached zero multiple times, and new cases had been reduced to a trickle.

Speight told the Daily Journal this week that a “small increase” in new COVID-19 cases was expected prior to Omicron being named a “variant of concern” due to the holiday season causing more people to gather indoors in larger groups. She added that we’re still weeks away from having reliable data on the risks associated with Omicron, but so far the current vaccines and boosters that are available are expected to be effective against the new threat.

“Omicron has rapidly replaced the Delta variant across South Africa. This suggests it could be more transmissible,” she said in an email. “To date, there are no lab studies that determine whether and to what degree Omicron can evade immunity from the vaccine or past infection. It is expected that vaccines currently authorized in the US will remain effective against severe outcomes, however, there is no actual data yet of vaccine effectiveness, transmissibility, or illness severity at this time.”

Richmond County recently crossed an important threshold for vaccination: 51.7% of those 12 years of age or older are now fully vaccinated, according to CDC data. In that same age range, 62.3% have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine. Of the total population, 53.2% have at least one dose and 43.9% are fully vaccinated.

In the over 65 demographic, which is the highest risk and has had access to the vaccines longer, 92.3% have at least one dose of the vaccine and 78.2% are fully vaccinated.

“We feel this is very comparable to other counties of our same characteristics,” Land said of the county’s vaccination progress. Scotland County is currently at 51.3% full vaccination for those 12 and older, and 63% with at least one dose in that age range and for the total population Scotland is at 43.3% full vaccination and 53.4% with at least one dose.

In the 12 and older age range for the region, Hoke County is significantly behind with only 37.4% fully vaccinated, Moore is far ahead with 61.6%, Montgomery is at 45.1%, Anson is at 48.6%, and Stanly is at 44.8%.

There has been a recent uptick in new cases and deaths. There have been 14 deaths since Oct. 1, three of which came in the last week of November. The rate of positivity for COVID-19 tests has been 9.86% for the last seven days, CDC data shows.

Still, FirstHealth only has 22 COVID-positive hospitalized patients total at all of its locations in the region as of Nov. 30.

Free COVID testing is available from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday – Friday in the parking lot behind the Health Department located at 123 Caroline St. in Rockingham. No appointment is needed.

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Reach Gavin Stone at 910-817-2673 or [email protected].