As the month ended, Cherokee County had its highest daily count of new COVID-19 cases at 25. In addition, health department staff got to tell 126 people they tested negative for the virus.
“We were very busy yesterday,” Health Director David Badger said Monday.
Many of the tests returned Sunday were for nursing home residents and staff at Valley View Care & Rehabilitation in Andrews. During an outbreak, staff is tested weekly for the virus instead of every two weeks. If a staff member is positive, the residents are tested.
On Sunday, 10 residents got positive test results, and two additional staff members learned they were positive.
An outbreak is two or more cases in a facility. Both Valley View and Murphy Rehabilitation & Nursing in Peachtree have ongoing outbreaks. Outbreaks are considered over when the facility is clear of positive tests for 28 days.
Badger said he anticipates the outbreaks to continue at the nursing homes, even though they are following
all safety and screening procedures.
“If a nursing home never gets it, they’re probably lucky,” he said. “I don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, it’s just a function of life.”
The N.C. Department of Health & Human Services encourages testing to slow the spread of the virus, and the county health department follows the state’s lead on testing procedures. In the past month, testing has decreased in Cherokee County, which Badger said is a trend nationwide.
He added that some people who think they have the virus are not getting tested, instead staying home and self-quarantining. While it’s good those people are not further spreading the virus, the negative is if they don’t get tested, the health department cannot do contact testing to help stop them from potentially spreading the virus.
As of Monday afternoon, the county had 66 active cases. Since March, the county has had 448 total cases, including 19 people from other states who tested positive while in the county, and four men and one woman who passed away after testing positive.
One was known to be hospitalized as of Monday morning.
Using data collected from 433 cases, the state reported Monday that 11 percent of the county’s cases were those ages 0-17, 9 percent were ages 18-24, 29 percent were ages 25-49, 27 percent were ages 50-64, 13 percent were ages 65-74 and 12 percent were ages 75 or older.
Anyone who experiences symptoms should contact their primary care provider, the health department or urgent care. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, symptoms include fever, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, chills, muscle aches, headache, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, fatigue, nausea or vomiting, diarrhea and new loss of taste or smell. Symptoms range from mild to severe and may appear 2-14 days after exposure.
Anyone can have mild to severe symptoms, but older adults and those with underlying medical conditions appear to be at higher risk for severe illness. The CDC said the virus spreads easily, and risk of spreading the virus increases the closer and longer a person’s interaction with another is. The state is asking anyone who is experiencing symptoms or thinks they were exposed to the virus to get tested.
As of Monday, North Carolina had 167,313 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and 2,702 deaths related to the virus since the beginning of March. More than 145,000 of those cases are presumed to be recovered.
More than 2.2 million state residents have been tested for the virus. In the last week, 6-8 percent of the tests returned positive daily.