The residents of Ashland County were known to have one of the lowest coronavirus positivity rates during the summer season.

Once students returned to the Ashland University campus, however, things began to trend in the wrong direction. The number of cases went up in the Ashland community, causing the county to move from yellow “level one” to the orange “level Two” designation, and now Ashland County is in the red “level Three” alert.

Ashland County has met four of the seven requirements of risk within the scoring system to be designated as red. The four  pieces for Ashland County include the percentage of cases that are not within a group setting (such as a nursing home), a trend of at least five days where the number of reported cases go up, the number of hospital visits for COVID tests, and new cases per capita, with an average of more than 67 cases per 100,000 residents, according to the online website tracking Ohio’s COVID cases.

As for AU, the number of active cases has slightly gone up; and as of Monday, the number stood at 36. Overall, as of Monday evening, Ashland County has a total of 242 cases reported, with 3 new cases from Sunday to Monday.

Nearby, Richland County has seen a larger spike in its number of cases as 20 more people tested positive on Monday; bringing the total to 903 with 19 deaths. Richland County is also currently under the Level two alert.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected everyone’s lives not just in the state, but also around the U.S. While Ohio continues to see a slight uptick in the number of cases and deaths each day, they are still trying to set prevention measures to keep the statistics from a serious spike. 

Ashland and Richland Counties are seeing slow spikes in their numbers, but the pressure is on to limit any further damage that could be created. Residents must keep their guard up if they want the cases to stay low.