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Murphy – The state is recommending that local leaders take stronger actions to prevent the community spread of COVID-19. The state’s new COVID-19 County Alert System placed Cherokee County in the orange tier for “substantial community spread.”
Under the recommendations, locals were asked to limit mixing between households, avoid places where people gather and reduce public interactions to essential activities. Businesses were encouraged to telework, if possible. Community and religious organizations were told they should avoid in-person indoor gatherings above the gathering limit of 10. Public officials were urged to increase enforcement of statewide restrictions, plus consider ordinances that place additional restrictions and penalties.
The executive orders have placed the burden of enforcement on businesses. Sheriff Derrick Palmer said if a business files a complaint, his office will respond. However, he believes the governor doesn’t understand that small rural counties don’t have the manpower to enforce mandates, including those that tell families how to gather for holidays.
“I’m not going to spend Thanksgiving going to people’s houses and counting heads,” he said.
Palmer said his deputies are trying to make sure businesses in his jurisdiction are complying with the regulations in place. The only enforcement he can do on individuals is trespassing if a business asks a person to leave and they refuse.
“That’s the hard part about these orders,” he said.
County Manager Randy Wiggins said last week he had heard of no plans for new restrictions in response to state’s announcement, and he wasn’t sure how successful any would be anyway. Commissioners could discuss any actions at their meeting Monday night, which occurred after the Cherokee Scout’s early holiday deadline.
Health Director David Badger said the information from the state “is what it is,” but thought it wasn’t something that should be used for policy-making.
“I think it’s something to give people a glimpse of what’s going,” he said. “We’ll just focus on doing the best we can for Cherokee County.”
Badger said he would continue looking at the county’s daily numbers for local decisions. He also didn’t think there was a need for a greater availability of testing, adding that his staff has even found ways to help those who did not have transportation to get to the health department.
Both orange and red tier counties – those with “critical community spread” – have the same recommendations, while yellow tier counties, or those with “significant community spread,” are asked to continue following what’s outlined in executive orders. Of North Carolina’s 100 counties, 43 were designated as orange counties, while 10 were red counties.
Gov. Roy Cooper announced the system and recommendations on Nov. 17, although he said cases were not surging as they are in other states, just increasing. At the time, the state saw its highest number of one-day new reported cases at 3,885 on Nov. 14, then the highest rate of hospitalizations at 1,501 on Nov. 16. On Thursday, the state reached a new high for new reported cases at 4,296.
“Right now, these are strong recommendations. However, if our metrics keep moving in the wrong direction, the state could impose additional orders, either at the local or statewide level,” Cooper said.
The system uses three metrics to determine a county’s status – case rate, percent of positive tests and the hospital impact. Case rate is measured by the number of new cases in 14 days per 100,000 people. Hospital impact was determined by looking at the percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations, COVID-19 related visits to the emergency department, available beds and critical staffing shortages over 14 days.
Counties must meet two of the criteria to be placed in a tier. To be placed in the orange tier, a county must have a case rate of 101-200 cases per 100,000 people, and either have an 8-10 percent positive or have a moderate hospital impact.
According to the report, Cherokee County had 255.1 cases per 100,000 people from Nov. 1-14, 9.5 percent tests returning positive during that time, and a low hospital impact.
Badger said he was a little bit surprised by the county’s designation, even though he knew the county had been hovering at an 8-9 percent positive rate. And, while he knows the county’s proximity to hospitals in other states was not considered in the hospital impact metric, he was concerned how much neighboring counties’ use of Erlanger Western Carolina Hospital in Peachtree would affect Cherokee County’s hospital impact metric.
Although the report tracks data for 14 days, the report will only be provided monthly, on the second week of the month. Counties will remain in their category for the month to give them time to make progress, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the N.C. Department of Health & Human Services. On Nov. 20, Cherokee County’s case rate dropped slightly to 248 per 100,000 people for 14 days, but it rose to 266 per 100,000 people on Nov. 22.
“At the end of the day, it’s really all about our individual choices, and how we try to possibly stop the spread of the virus,” Badger said. “It’s about people making conscientious decisions.”
As of Sunday afternoon, the county had 55 active cases. Since March, the county has had 906 total cases, including 19 people from other states who tested positive while in the county, and 21 people who passed away after testing positive. Badger said more and more people who are getting tested are showing symptoms of the virus.
Using data collected from 861 cases, the state reported Friday that 10 percent of the county’s cases were those ages 0-17, 8 percent were ages 18-24, 28 percent were ages 25-49, 24 percent were ages 50-64, 16 percent were ages 65-74 and 13 percent were ages 75 or older.
Anyone who experiences symptoms should contact their primary care provider, the health department or urgent care. COVID-19 symptoms range from mild to severe and may appear 2-14 days after exposure, while flu symptoms appear 1-4 days after exposure.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control & Prevention, both COVID-19 and flu symptoms may include fever, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, sore throat, congestion or runny nose, muscle aches, headache, nausea or vomiting and diarrhea. COVID-19 symptoms may also include a new loss of taste or smell.
The CDC said the virus spreads very easily, and risk of spreading the virus increases the closer and longer a person’s interaction with another is.
As of Sunday, North Carolina had 336,775 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and 5,034 deaths related to the virus since the beginning of March.