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Murphy – Only 130 people in Cherokee County tested positive for COVID-19 in October, the lowest number since June, when only 20 tested positive.
However, as Health Director David Badger noted, testing for the virus was also lower than it was in June.
“We know the virus is still out there,” he said. “I don’t think it should give anyone a false sense of hope.”
Badger knows people are getting complacent. He said local residents need to keep pushing forward and do their part to prevent the spread of the virus.
For some reason he said, the health department also hasn’t been seeing as many asymptomatic people – or those not experiencing symptoms – getting screened for the virus. Out of the 130 people who tested positive, 105 were experiencing symptoms last month. Badger said those were not experiencing symptoms and were positive primarily were those who needed testing for medical procedures or travel.
Badger added that people need to be vigilant and do more to prevent the spread of the virus so we can go back to “what we identify as a normal type of life.”
With flu, cold and strep season starting, he said we need to do what we can to mitigate sickness and manage the virus. Everyone should continue to take precautions like staying aware of the symptoms of the virus, understanding and being self aware of personal symptoms, wearing masks when appropriate and avoiding crowds.
“The hard part is, it’s so simple,” Badger said.
Anyone who experiences symptoms should contact their primary health-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, and nausea or vomiting, diarrhea. COVID-19 symptoms may also include a new loss of taste or smell.
As of Monday afternoon, the county had 37 active cases. Since March, the county has had 799 total cases, including 19 people from other states who tested positive while in the county, and 20 people who passed away after testing positive.
Using data collected from 785 cases, the state reported Monday that 11 percent of the county’s cases were ages 0-17, 8 percent were ages 18-24, 28 percent were ages 25-49, 25 percent were ages 50-64, 16 percent were ages 65-74 and 13 percent were ages 75 or older.
As of Monday, North Carolina had 278,028 confirmed positive cases of COVID-19 and 4,390 deaths related to the virus since the beginning of March. More than 246,000 of those cases were presumed to be recovered.
More than 4.1 million state residents have been tested for the virus. In the last week, 5-6 percent of the tests returned positive daily.
As of Oct. 24, there were only three people who tested positive for the flu and one flu-associated death across the state this season, according to the N.C. Department of Health & Human Services.