One-hundred ninety-six. That’s the number of deaths from COVID-19 posted on the Washington County website as of January 4, 2021. The average age of those to contract the disease in Washington County was 39, while the average age of those to die from COVID-19 was 82. With vaccines still in the pipeline but not yet distributed, it’s not over yet. These are the numbers for coronavirus as of January 4, after the first presumptive case in Minnesota was announced in nearby Ramsey County on March 6, 2020.

In the first place (and for slightly dated good news), the case rate per 10,000 people as a population figure on December 19 stood at 68.37, down from a spike to 155.89 on November 21. At the same time, men were slightly more affected than women per data posted January 4, with men suffering 50.45 percent of cases to 49.2 percent experienced by women, with 0.4 percent of cases unknown or missing gender information. As to age distribution, the bar graph followed a roughly symmetrical curve, peaked in the middle and skewed right.

Within that curve, 2.2 percent of known coronavirus cases to date were in children from zero to four years old, while the percentage jumped to 13.8 percent for those aged 5 to 18. For those aged 19 to 34 in Washington County the share of cases was 26.4 percent, reduced slightly for 35 to 49 -yearolds with a rate of 23.9 percent. The curve percentage for known cases, meanwhile, stayed roughly stable at 22.7 percent for those aged 50 to 64 years old, while 11 percent were for those aged 65 and older.

As to race and ethnicity data, the overwhelming share of cases played out among the white population of Washington County at 69.8 percent of the population, though this figure could mask disproportionate effect on other residents as 86 percent of Washington County was classed as ‘white’ in the same table. For African-Americans meanwhile, the rate of coronavirus cases was 8.1 percent in Washington County to just 4.4 percent of the population, while for those identified as ‘Asian’ the proportion of cases was 5.7 percent, with the share of county population being 5.5. percent. Those classed as ‘other’ came out to 5.4 percent of known local cases, corresponding to 4.4. percent of the county population. Those for whom data on race was missing took up 11.1 percent of the county cases.

Shifting from race to ethnicity, the overwhelming majority of cases of COVID-19 were experienced by non-Hispanic individuals, at 61.4 percent of cases to 96 percent of the county’s population. For those identified as Hispanic, the case share was 5.5. percent with just four percent of the county’s overall population. Those for whom ethnic information was not catalogued in Washington County measured 33.1 percent of cases.

As for known exposure settings for COVID-19 as opposed to living situations, the data is as follows.

As of January 4, 19.4 percent of those known to have coronavirus caught it within the community from a known contact, while another 19.5 percent were also from the community, without a known contact. For those contracting it from a community outbreak the number was 3.1 percent, while those who contracted it in a health care setting came out to 2.9 percent of known cases. Long-term care, Assisted Living, Group homes, and residential behavioral health settings accounted for 6.7 percent of cases, while other 6.3 percent were thought to have contracted the virus in an ‘other congregate living setting.’ Travel accounted for 8.2 percent of exposures to COVId-19, while a full 33.8 percent were unknown or missing.

As to the everyday living situation of those known to have contracted COVID-19, private residences made up the majority at 57.7 percent, while 9.2 percent lived in a congregate setting and the living situation of 33.1 percent was unknown.

For Washington County as a whole, Woodbury registered 4,624 cases of COVID-19 as of January 4, while Cottage Grove had 2,671 and Stillwater registered 2,297. At the same time, Oakdale had 2,172 cases while Forest Lake registered 1,568 people who had contracted COVID-19 as of January 4.

For Bayport, there were a total of 1,132 known cases of COVID-19 taken cumulatively, while for Hugo that number was 1,081. For Lake Elmo, meanwhile, the case registry showed 871 known cases of COVID-19, while at Mahtomedi the number was 541.

Over in St. Paul Park there were 428 cases of COVID-19 known to public health, while in nearby Newport the number was 309. Scandia had 184 cases, Oak Park Heights had 182, and Lakeland had 156.

For Afton there were 126 cases of COVID-19, while in Landfall there were 103 and in Marine on St. Croix there were 100. For White Bear Lake the COVID case count stood at 96, while at Grant the number was 48. For Dellwood the number was 48, and in Hastings for Washington County there were 47 cases. Pine Springs came in at 39 known cases, Willernie had 29, Lakeland township was 28 and Lake St. Croix Beach came out to 11 known cases.

But while the overall case count in small communities might seem low, the positivity rate saw a sharp spike from the end of October through November and December, trending slightly down at an eight percent test positivity rate county-wide as of the last week of 2020, from Christmas Eve through De3cember 31.

More information and pertinent info is available by going to the Washington County website at www.co.washington. mn.us and clicking on the “Washington County data