After being relatively flat for a while, COVID-19 cases are ticking back up in the county. On July 29, 2021, Clermont County Public Health reported 41 cases, the most since 50 were reported on Feb. 19, 2021. Photo provided.

After being relatively flat for a while, COVID-19 cases are ticking back up in the county. On July 29, 2021, Clermont County Public Health reported 41 cases, the most since 50 were reported on Feb. 19, 2021. Photo provided.

<p>Pictured is a chest computed tomography showing abnormalities of relatively high prevalence in COVID-19. According to the Radiological Society of North America, the image shows bilateral ground-glass opacities (in other words, the gray spots that look like glass ought not be there) and dilated segmental and subsegmental vessels, mainly on the right, in a 70-year-old man with positive RT-PCR test results for SARS-CoV-2.</p>

Pictured is a chest computed tomography showing abnormalities of relatively high prevalence in COVID-19. According to the Radiological Society of North America, the image shows bilateral ground-glass opacities (in other words, the gray spots that look like glass ought not be there) and dilated segmental and subsegmental vessels, mainly on the right, in a 70-year-old man with positive RT-PCR test results for SARS-CoV-2.

After being relatively flat for June and early July, COVID-19 cases in Clermont County, like the state and nation, are ticking back up again heading into August.

On June 17, the daily case count was four. By July 15, that number climbed to 13 and then, four days later, 26. On July 29, Clermont County Public Health reported 41 cases.

The county hasn’t seen a day with 41 reported cases since Feb. 19, when the county hit 50.

And it’s not just cases; on July 25, there were four hospitalizations, which is more than double the number of hospitalizations the county has been experiencing for the last three months. Those four hospitalizations represent the most in one day since late February.

So far, there has not been a corresponding increase in deaths. The last reported death in the county due to COVID-19 was on July 11.

There have been a total of 261 deaths due to COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.

Nearly 20,000 Clermont County residents are presumed to have recovered from the virus.

Since late March, all Ohioans 16 and up have been able to make an appointment to receive a vaccination, and for most of the summer now, walk-ins have been available at both Clermont County Public Health clinics and private pharmacies like Kroger, Meijer, CVS and Walmart.

Since May, those 12 and up have been able to get the COVID-19 vaccine as well.

Clermont is still below the 50 percent threshold on that front, both on residents who have started their vaccination and on residents who have completed their vaccination. The former represents 47.25 percent, or 97,527 people; and the latter represents 44.36 percent, or 91,567 people.

CCPH has made itself nimble throughout the local vaccine rollout to try to accommodate people as much as possible, whether it was establishing a partnership with the University of Cincinnati Clermont College to facilitate a mass vaccination clinic, driving to the homes of those unable to travel, reaching those in the far reaches of the rural parts of the county, those at schools, and so on.

Julianne Nesbit, health commissioner with CCPH, told The Sun once the mass vaccination clinics ended, CCPH began offering offsite vaccine clinics in the community to make it more convenient for people to get their vaccine.

When asked what people should do if they are finding it hard to make time for the vaccine due to work, Nesbit said they have offered after-hour clinics at its office in Batavia, but she also reiterated that there are many other providers in the county offering the vaccine.

“If time is the reason, we would encourage people to consider combining errands. For example, go grocery shopping and get vaccinated while you’re there,” she said.

From this reporter’s own experience getting vaccinated, the process — filling out basic paperwork, waiting to be taken back, receiving the vaccine and then waiting 15 minutes thereafter to ensure no adverse reaction — takes 25 minutes at most, if the place in question is busy, 20 if not.

Other concerns people have had about getting the COVID-19 vaccine is that the Federal Food and Drug Administration has only granted an “emergency use authorization” for the vaccines.

As Nesbit explains though, the EUA was granted to allow the vaccines to be administered as soon as possible to save as many lives as they could.

The EUA did not circumvent any safety protocols.

“The COVID-19 vaccine trials are the largest clinical trials of any vaccine. The evidence still shows that they are safe and highly effective, and it is expected that the FDA will grant full approval of the vaccines soon,” she said.

Instead of turning to social media or YouTube for one’s vaccination questions — and even family and friends who have not been vaccinated and may be repeating that vaccine misinformation — Nesbit encouraged those who are unvaccinated and have questions to talk to their physician or primary care provider.

“Talking to your doctor or someone close to you that you trust that has been vaccinated may help answer some of those questions and dispel some of the misinformation that is circulating,” she said.

Nesbit later added, “We would also tell anyone who is vaccinated to share their story with any of their unvaccinated friends or family that may be unsure whether or not to get vaccinated. We know people will listen more to people close to them that they trust,” Nesbit said.

And as mentioned, the vaccine is available to anyone 12 years of age and older. Just because you’re a young, seemingly healthy person does not mean the vaccine is unnecessary for you. In addition, getting vaccinated is about more than just your own health.

“The more people vaccinated in a community, the better protected the entire community is,” Nesbit said. “Protecting yourself can also help protect those who can’t get vaccinated (anyone under the age of 12 or others with medical conditions).

Furthermore, the longer unvaccinated people continue to not get the vaccine, the more likely it is that the vaccine will continue to mutate into deadlier, more transmissible strains, as has been the case with the Delta variant.

“If everyone was vaccinated, the virus would eventually run out of hosts,” Nesbit said.

The purpose of the vaccine is that it readies your body to fight the virus, should you contract it. And in so doing, your body doesn’t have to fight as hard, thus staving off serious illness or death. That holds true of the Delta variant as well.

It is still the case that the predominant way in which COVID-19 spreads, including the Delta variant, is from unvaccinated person to unvaccinated person.

Without the vaccine, serious illness typically involves COVID-19 pneumonia.

COVID-19 pneumonia also looks a lot different than normal pneumonia, according to Panagis Galiatsatos, a doctor at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Air sacs in both lungs fill with fluid, limiting their ability to take in oxygen and causing shortness of breath, cough and other symptoms.

As the pneumonia progresses, more of the air sacs become filled with fluid leaking from the tiny blood vessels in the lung and can lead to respiratory distress syndrome, a form of lung failure.

That’s the moment patients may require a ventilator for support to help circulate oxygen in the body, Galliatsatos said.

“While most people recover from pneumonia without any lasting lung damage, the pneumonia associated with COVID-19 can be severe. Even after the disease has passed, lung injury may result in breathing difficulties that might take months to improve,” he said.

Remember, the vaccine is free and safe, hospitalization isn’t.

CCPH continues to offer no-appointment-needed vaccine clinics at its Batavia office, located at 2400 Clermont Center Drive from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. every Tuesday and Thursday.

Visit ccphohio.org/covid-19-vaccine-info for more information.