COVID-19 cases continue slow decline in Lincoln | local government
Lancaster County saw another slight drop in COVID-19 cases last week.
The Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department reported 633 cases for the week ending Saturday. That was down more than 3% from the previous week, and it was the second straight weekly drop in the number of cases.
The number of hospitals also fell, with the rolling daily average of COVID-19 patients at Lincoln hospitals falling from 47 last week to 41 on Tuesday. There were 35 patients hospitalized on Tuesday, the lowest number since July 7.
The Department of Health said its risk dial would remain in the low orange range for the third week in a row. This position on the dial indicates that the risk of spreading the virus in the community is high.
Despite declining cases and hospitalizations, Lancaster County is in the “high” category for community levels of COVID-19 according to updated tracking from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC recommends people wear masks indoors and on public transportation in communities in the “high” category.
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Due to the designation, employees and the public are required to wear masks at the Robert V. Denney Federal Building in downtown Lincoln.
Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird earlier this month began requiring city employees to wear masks, but the mandate does not extend to the public.
Local COVID-19 numbers are generally consistent with statewide numbers.
The CDC reported there were 3,599 new cases in the seven-day period that ended Friday, up from 4,030 the previous week. The number of hospitalizations increased slightly, from an average of 177 per day to 185 per day.
The number of cases in Nebraska remains at relatively low levels compared to the country, about 25% below the American rate. Nationally, COVID-19 cases fell about 5% last week, with nearly two-thirds of states reporting declines, the Omaha World-Herald reported.
Official counts are considered undercounts, with many infected people not testing or using home tests that are not reported to public health agencies or included in official counts.
All of this has made it difficult to determine the next trend of the pandemic. The number of cases is currently higher than it has been at this time in each of the past two summers.
Dr. James Lawler, co-executive director of the Global Center for Health Security at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said growth in COVID-19 cases has slowed a bit in Nebraska and parts of the country.
“The reality is that we’re in kind of a weird time of year where you have a lot of forces working against each other,” he said. “(Summer) has generally been our lowest time of COVID activity.”
It’s possible Nebraska will see a drop in case numbers before the fall, but Lawler said, “If I had to guess, we’re probably not going to see a huge drop in case numbers and activity from the illness for the next two weeks.”
Lawler said the start of the school year next month is expected to increase cases by September. Overall, the trend is similar to last year, pointing to a tough fall and winter ahead.
The Omaha-World Herald contributed to this report.
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How online spending habits have changed in every state during COVID-19
How online spending habits have changed in every state during COVID-19
The shopping habits of Americans as a whole will never be quite the same as they were before the global COVID-19 pandemic. The risk of catching the new virus that causes COVID-19 kept consumers away from public spaces for much of 2020 and 2021 as the United States developed and distributed vaccines. And while people were at home, they turned to smartphones and computers to do their shopping.
Data from Google Trends suggests that interest in online shopping peaked in the first week of April 2020. Each subsequent spike in interest in online shopping was slightly lower.
Grocery retail is just one of the industries that has seen consumers change their online shopping habits in recent years. Online grocery shopping was in its infancy just two years ago. Grocers had launched mobile apps, but consumers had yet to change their habits to take advantage of new, convenient ways to shop for food and other necessities. In 2020, food retailers embraced mobile ordering, delivery and curbside pickup, and consumers followed suit, whether for health or convenience.
Not all industries have benefited from the pandemic shift to e-commerce like grocers. Apparel retailers saw sales fall in 2020, while sporting goods retailers saw sales rise from pre-pandemic levels, census data shows.
Looking ahead, some online shopping habits developed over the past two years are proving to be more persistent than others. For example, demand remains high for curbside pickup orders — a pandemic-era service that data suggests may be here to stay. While grocery delivery declined in 2021 compared to 2020, curbside pickup sales increased, according to market research firm Brick Meets Click and e-commerce platform Mercatus.
Giving Assistant collected and reviewed data from Google Trends and The New York Times to understand how interest in online shopping has changed during the pandemic.
This story examines Google Trends data from January 26, 2020 to June 28, 2022, to show search volume for terms related to the topic “online shopping” within the “shopping” category. The values are relative to the total search volume on Google. The data is normalized and displayed on a scale of 1 to 100, with each point divided by the highest point.
While Google doesn’t share the exact terms that fall under this topic and category, they do show the most frequently searched terms with this topic, such as “buying clothes online” and “online sales.” COVID-19 data is from the New York Times Coronavirus Data in the United States repository.
Kite_rin // Shutterstock
As COVID grew, people’s interest in shopping online peaked
Data from Google Trends shows that almost every time COVID-19 cases have spiked in the United States, Americans have overwhelmingly turned to the internet to shop. Over the 2.5 year period analysed, interest in online shopping increased for several months around each case increase and then declined somewhat – although still above interest levels d before the pandemic – before rising again with the next wave of COVID infections. A downward sloping line can also mean that search interest has increased for other terms.
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Interest in online shopping was strongest in the East
Relative interest in online shopping was highest in more densely populated regions, particularly on the East Coast. States in New England, the Midwest, and some western landlocked states showed the least interest during the two-year period.
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The greatest interest in online shopping is centered in Florida and South Carolina
Consumers in Florida, South Carolina and New York were the most engaged in online shopping, according to search interests data from Google Trends. As sunny Florida and South Carolina are both major destinations for retirees, including those who have moved during the pandemic, it’s no surprise that large numbers of seniors are organizing grocery pickup. curbside or home delivery in these two southeastern states. New York has been the epicenter of the pandemic and also has a significant number of seniors who were already accustomed to take-out or delivery in restaurants in New York before adopting door-to-door delivery for groceries and household products. basic.
This story originally appeared on Giving Assistant and was produced and distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
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Contact the writer at 402-473-2647 or [email protected]
On Twitter @LincolnBizBuzz.
