For the first time in nine weeks, Lexington County is no longer recommended to mask against COVID-19.

After eight-straight weeks of grading high in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's COVID Community Levels, the county’s level is down to medium this week, which means the universal recommendation to mask in indoor public places that comes with a high level has been lifted.

The Community Levels use the latest local data to advise counties how best to combat the virus. The recommendations that come with the levels are backed by the CDC and the state Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Levels across the state continue to drop, and for the first time this year, no counties are recommended to mask. 14 of the state’s 46 counties have a medium level (including Lexington neighbors Newberry and Richland), while the rest have low levels (including Lexingotn neighbors Saluda, Aiken, Orangeburg and Calhoun).

Lexington's case rate continued to drop sharply for the second-straight week, with 109.79 cases per 100,000 people being reported for the seven days leading up to Jan. 26, down from 202.51 last week and a 2023 peak of 348.45 two weeks ago.

In previous weeks, Lexington’s case rate rose from 88.37 per 100,000 people to 202.18 to 202.51 to 250.04 to 283.51 to 307.62.

Lexington also continued to see drops in the other two metrics that go into determining Community levels — new COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 people (11.7 this week, 14.6 last week) and the percentage of staffed inpatient hospital beds in use by COVID patients (5.2% this week, 6.5% last week).