For the first time since he became Wood County health commissioner, Ben Robison did not have a coronavirus case update at the board’s monthly meeting.

Robison said the no-COVID report on Thursday was purposeful.

“We actually took it off the agenda,” he said. “Cases have increased a little bit … but the risk to the community remains low.

“We don’t anticipate that they’ll rise to such a level where we’ll recommend indoor masks,” said Robison, who was also not wearing a mask for the first meeting since the pandemic started.

Hospitalizations are low in Wood County and throughout the state, he said.

“We’re in a much different place than we were a year ago,” Robison said. “We’re starting to begin to turn the page and focus on other aspects of health department work.”

One focus is on a community health assessment, which is in progress.

Priorities will be mental health and addiction, chronic disease and social wellness.

The last category is new and came out of COVID, Robison said.

“We want to be responsive to where we find ourselves and right now, on the other side of COVID, we recognize that there’s a need to really move forward and continue to recover.

“The idea of social wellness is to really build upon and re-knit some of the things that have frayed, to strengthen the connections that we already have,” Robison said. “It could really be supported by anybody, really anywhere in the county.”

Also Thursday, the board voted to hire SSOE Group for $517,105 to work on the community health center renovation.

SSOE will provide professional architectural, engineering and interior design services.

The fees will be paid using Health Resources and Services Administration funds that were awarded to the health center on Sept. 1, through the American Rescue Plan Act.

Robison said the bidding process could being in about 60 days.

Also at the meeting, the board:

• Approved increasing the amount of funding to the NetPlus transportation program from $12,000 per year to $18,000 per year. This is for the remainder of the current year and for the next fiscal year.

The program is run in conjunction with the county commissioners, job and family services and the board of developmental disabilities.

• Heard from David Desser, who asked the board to be aware of adverse reactions to the coronavirus vaccines and how the Centers for Disease Control reports them.

He said he personally knows two people who got vaccinated, then either had a heart attack or was diagnosed with a brain tumor.

“We’re got to keep our eyes open and see what’s going on,” Desser said.

• Went into a 90-minute executive session. No action was taken.