By Sam Wildow
TROY — The Board of Miami County Commissioners met on Tuesday, hearing a COVID-19 update from Miami County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Director Joel Smith.
“It’s the third week where numbers are going down,” Smith said.
Smith said the case rate per 100,000 residents in Miami County for the 14-day period between Sept. 30 and Oct. 13 was at approximately 681 cases, which was down from the previous week’s case rate of 789. This ranks Miami County in the 35th spot in terms of Ohio counties with the highest rates of COVID cases, which is down from the 29th spot last week.
Miami County has had 15,355 COVID cases since the pandemic began, including 331 new cases over the past week, Smith said. This is compared to previous week of 433 new cases.
“Our rate of increase is going down,” Smith said. He said there are an estimated 989 active cases of COVID in Miami County, which is 150 fewer than last week at this time.
There have also been 893 total hospitalizations in the county, including 39 over the past week. The county has also had a total of 296 deaths related to COVID, which is 12 more since last week, according to Smith.
“There’s been some updated numbers on the delta variant,” Smith said. Smith said the percentage of COVID cases that were believed to be the delta variant in July was 39% of those cases, compared to 96% of COVID cases in August and 54% in October.
The positivity rate in Miami County is at 16.2%, which is down from last week when Miami County’s positivity rate was 18.5%. The state’s positivity rate is 10.6%.
As of Tuesday morning, all ICU beds in Miami County hospitals were full, which included four beds for COVID patients. Approximately 79% of ICU beds in the region are filled.
Also on Tuesday, the commissioners held a moment of silence out of remembrance of Matthew Reid, who worked in the Miami County Engineer Department and recently passed away. Funeral services will be held at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 22, in the Fletcher Fire House, 6535 OH-589, Fletcher. Visitation for family and friends will be held from 10 a.m. until noon on Friday prior to the funeral service in the firehouse.
The commissioners also voted to redeem and pay off a portion of the outstanding Miami County Free/Stine Group Reconstruction Project Limited Tax General Obligation Bonds, dated Oct. 5, 2021, and such portion to be redeemed shall be $11,075.48, at the redemption price of 100% of par. The redemption price shall be paid using available county funds available for the project in an amount necessary to pay the redemption price in full.
The commissioners then authorized and entered into a contract with the village of Pleasant Hill and the Miami County Sheriff’s Office for the purpose of providing police protection to the village. The village agrees to pay to Miami County the sum of $36,724 for the term of Jan. 1, 2022 through Dec. 31, 2022.
The commissioners also held a bid opening of requests for qualifications for engineering and design services for the Miami County Fairground Grandstand and Fairground Utility Infrastructure project. The county received responses from Brown & Bills Architects out of Englewood, Garmann Miller of Minster, and the WDC Group of Springfield. The bids have not yet been awarded.
