The Muskingum County Joint Unified Command Center is reporting an additional death Thursday afternoon as the county continues to experience a rapid increase in cases of the Coronavirus throughout the local community.

This comes as the county has become the third-highest cases per capita of all of Ohio’s 88 counties, as reported by the Ohio Department of Health.

The county recently surpassed 3,000 cases of the virus and is recording triple-digit positive COVID-19 cases per day, each day for that past week.

The county’s nineteenth COVID-19 death was of a 74-year-old who died due to “COVID-19 pneumonia.”

That individual’s gender and identity are being withheld due to HIPAA regulations.

The passing of that resident marks the fourth death of a county citizen due to the Coronavirus pandemic this week.

During his monthly address at the beginning of last month, Dr. Jack Butterfield, Medical Director of the Zanesville-Muskingum County Health Department and Safety Officer for the Muskingum County Joint Unified Command Center, said he’s alarmed by individual’s willingness to disqualify the severity of the virus due to the age of those who are dying.

“It’s bothersome when I hear people say oh they were 75-years-old or 80-years-old. Their life still has value,” said Butterfield. “They still died. Oftentimes they were completely healthy, but because of age and maybe a comorbid condition they died. So I think it is unfair to say that their life has less value than say someone who is 35.”

Thursday, an additional 141 cases of the virus were reported in Muskingum County, with supplementary county-level data still unavailable due to a technical issue with the Health Department’s dashboard.

The agency said they hope to have the dashboard up again by next Tuesday, December 8 which will include data on information such as rates of local hospitalizations and active total cases.

Between Thursday, November 26 and Thursday, December 3 the Command Center reported an additional 702 cases of the virus.

Citing that and statewide data, Butterfield said that the county is experiencing a “continued surge of positive cases.”

Cases are largely being attributed to community spread, linked to various forms of gatherings of individuals.

Muskingum County continues to remain at a Level 3 Red Public Health Emergency as categorized by the Ohio Department of Health.