CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cuyahoga County has reached the federal government’s threshold for “substantial” transmission of COVID-19, triggering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation that vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors.

Cuyahoga County appears to have hit the CDC’s benchmark over the weekend, moving from “moderate” transmission as of Friday, into “substantial” transmission as of Saturday, according to CDC data.

The CDC’s ranking system has four categories ranging from least severe to most: low, moderate, substantial and high. Its indoor mask recommendation only applies to counties with “substantial” or “high” transmission – areas with new infection rates of 50 or more per 100,000 residents, or positive coronavirus test results of over 8% in the past seven days

Through Saturday, Cuyahoga County’s seven-day average logged 52.55 cases per 100,000 residents, up from 39.51 one week ago, according to CDC data.

The county’s seven-day average for testing positivity rates was 2.93% as of Saturday.

Cuyahoga County Health Commissioner Terry Allan on Monday morning tweeted the development. But the Board of Health did not immediately address questions from The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com about whether the designation will trigger any new guidance from local health authorities. Rather, a spokesman said the board would hold a press conference on Wednesday afternoon “where we will review the current data and offer updates regarding schools and the public at large.”

The CDC last week began recommending fully vaccinated people mask up indoors in areas with higher levels of transmission in response to a surge of COVID-19 cases across much of the U.S., fueled by the more-transmissible Delta variant.

The Board of Health’s most recent data – made public on Friday, but reflecting cases in suburban Cuyahoga County through July 24 – appears to show a climbing caseload in recent weeks. The number of new cases for the week ending July 10 was 100, the next week was 245, and the week ending July 24 was 328.

Even so, the CDC’s most recent data show hospital admissions for COVID-19 declined in Cuyahoga County over the last seven days, and fewer than 10 people died during that span. Those trends, similar to some national ones, could reflect that infections are less severe for those who are vaccinated. About 52% of the county’s total population is vaccinated, and about 60% of those 12 and older are vaccinated, the CDC data show.

With the recent designation of “substantial” transmission, Cuyahoga County is now among the 78.5% of counties nationwide in which the CDC is recommending vaccinated people mask up indoors.

As of one week ago, Lorain County was the only county in northeast Ohio that had hit the “substantial” transmission mark. Now, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lorain, Medina and Portage counties are all considered to have “substantial” transmission, while Summit, Lake and Ashtabula counties are considered to have “moderate” transmission.

View transmission rates by county on the CDC website: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view

View: Cuyahoga County Board of Health’s COVID-19 data dashboard and city of Cleveland data dashboard.

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