By Daniel Winningham
As of Sunday, Oct. 3, Perry County’s seven-day rolling average of COVID-19 cases was 9.9. This week, the health department is reporting 107 active cases.
This is the second consecutive week the county’s seven-day rolling average is reportedly less than 10.
Aug. 31 was the last time the health department reported an active case number of fewer than 100.
Perry County is leading the state in cases per 100,000 for the second straight week.
The metric for this week was 303.1 cases per 100,000 residents and includes 58 new cases.
The most recent numbers for the county are showing improvement, though. In the past seven days, Perry County has just reported 15.7 cases per 100,000 residents which ranks 103rd among the 118 measured counties and municipalities.
New Madrid County is second (216.7, 37 new cases), followed by Lincoln County (213.5, 166 new cases), Barton County (204.1, 25 new cases) and Bates County (204.1, 33 new cases). Nearby Jefferson County ranks seventh (198.6, 447 new cases) and Madison County (198.5, 24 new cases) are also in the top 10 in terms of cases per 100,000 residents.
Overall, since the pandemic began Perry County is ranked seventh in the state with 15,102 cumulative cases per 100,000 residents (2,890 confirmed cases).
Adjacent counties Madison (16,173 cases per 100,000 residents, 1,955 confirmed cases) and St. Francois (15,440 cases per 100,000 residents, 10,107 confirmed cases) rank third and eighth, respectively, in the PCR/Genomic Sequencing Metrics tally collected by the state of Missouri.
VACCINE UPDATE
More than 40 percent of county residents age 12 and older have received the COVID-19 vaccine. The official percent, as of Sunday, Oct. 3, was 41.1. Additionally, 44.7 percent of those age 12 and older have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
A total of 7,304 have initiated vaccination (38.2 percent) while the number of individuals completing vaccination is at 6,724 (35.1 percent).
Three adjacent nearby counties have surpassed 40 percent for completed vaccination, including Cape Girardeau (42.8 percent, 33,737), St. Francois (42.3 percent, 28,441) and Ste. Genevieve (42.0 percent, 7,523), while Bollinger County just went past 30 percent in terms of initiated vaccination (30.1, 3,654 residents).
A total of four counties are cities have surpassed 50 percent in terms of initiated vaccination, with Joplin topping the list at 55.9 percent (28,478 residents), followed by city of St. Louis (52.7 percent, 524,348 residents), St. Charles County 52.6 percent, 211,404 residents) and Boone County (50.9 percent, 91,936 residents).
Statewide, a total of 3.3 million have initiated vaccination while 2.94 million have completed vaccination. This is a total of 54.0 percent to initiate vaccination and 48.0 percent as completed vaccination.
On the low end, a total of 13 counties are below 30 percent in terms of initiated vaccination. Pulaski County has had just 19.1 percent initiate vaccinate (10,061 residents) while Scotland County is at 23.8 percent (1,168 residents).
