A sixth Lancaster County resident has died after contracting the coronavirus, local health officials reported, as the county's total number of COVID-19 cases climbed by 90 on Monday.
Interim Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department Director Pat Lopez said the resident died after being hospitalized for more than a week because of COVID-19, and like the other deaths in the county, this person also had an underlying health condition.Â
Though the numbers are still quite small, the county's death rate — 1.9 deaths per 100,000 residents — remains lower than the state rate of 6.6 deaths per 100,000 residents, Lopez said.
Five of the six deaths have been reported this month, including three in three days last week.Â
The state's death toll stood at 125 Monday evening, including deaths reported in Hall and Dawson counties.
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Overall, Lancaster County has 889 cases of COVID-19, and, to date, 120 people have fully recovered from the virus, according to the department.Â
The 90-case increase reported marks the largest single-day increase in new cases for Lancaster County, but Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird pointed out that private labs had a backlog of samples to test at the end of last week.Â
No new cases had been uncovered tied to the outbreak at the Smithfield plant in Crete, so the total of Lancaster County cases associated with the meatpacking plant there remained at 261.Â
Contact tracers have identified 17 cases connected to the Smithfield food-processing plant in Lincoln and 12 associated with the Smart Chicken plant in Waverly, Lopez said.Â
Lincoln hospitals on Monday continued to have the capacity to take on new patients with 42 COVID-19 patients in their care, including 21 from outside of Lancaster County, Lopez said. Ventilators were needed to treat 12 of the 42 patients, she said.