Mark Lander, the local health department administrator, showed commissioners a chart that revealed how vaccines have helped bring down the winter COVID-19 surge much faster than last summer's surge. Lander said the seven-day, 30-day and 90-day data shows that hospital admissions, as well as ICU bed and ventilator usage, are all on the decline. "So those are all good signs," Lander said. Data shows that in mid-January that Marion County was averaging 284 new cases per day for a week, had a seven-day positivity rate of 17.9%, and about 150 people were hospitalized with a COVID-19 diagnosis. On Tuesday, Marion's average daily case rate for the past week was 47, the seven-day positivity rate was 5.2%, and hospitalizations were 31.