County shifts back to yellow

After five straight weeks at “blue,” Jay County ticked back up a notch in the state’s coronavirus metrics.

Jay County was rated “yellow” (moderate risk for the spread of coronavirus) in the Indiana State Department of Health update released Wednesday.

The county’s rating moved because of an increase in its positivity rate. The local rate jumped to 5.59% this week, up from 2.7% the previous week. It had been as low as 1.87% last month.

Jay County’s cases per 100,000 residents stayed relatively stable, coming in at 63 this week after sitting at 68 last week. It had been as low was 23 in the March 3 update.

Heath Butz, environmentalist and administrator for Jay County Health Department, noted a recent increase in cases. There has been at least one new case in Jay County each of the last 11 days, with 19 in the seven days.

As of last week, the county was averaging 1.63 new cases per day in March. That number is now up to 1.96.

“We need to be mindful of what we’re doing because we have had a few more cases of late,” said Butz. “So we’re seeing little fluctuations. And if you look to our neighbor, Blackford, they had a spike in cases last week. … I think it goes to show we need to keep mindful of those measures that have helped to get us where we area.”

Blackford County was the only of the 92 in the state to be rated orange (high risk) this week, with 25 counties yellow and 66 blue (low risk). (Its positivity rate jumped to 13.7% and its cases per 100,000 residents was 348.) Wells County was yellow for the second consecutive week while Adams, Delaware and Randolph counties were all blue.

Coronavirus vaccination appointments are now available to Hoosiers 40 and older. They are scheduled to be opened to Indiana residents 16 and older beginning March 31.

Jay County has vaccination clinics available at the health department and IU Health Jay. Appointments can be made by visiting ourshot.in.gov or calling the state’s 2-1-1 telephone assistance service.

As of Wednesday, nearly 6,900 doses of coronavirus vaccine had been administered in Jay County with 2,683 individuals fully vaccinated. Nearly 2.5 million doses have been administered statewide with nearly 1 million fully vaccinated.