Even as positive signs continue to appear and case numbers continue to trend downward, COVID-19 has claimed five more victims in Cherokee County.
The Cherokee County Health Department reported Monday that two more residents, both in their early 70s, have died from COVID-19, which means a total 91 people have died here from the coronavirus since the pandemic began about 18 months ago. On Friday, two other deaths were announced, one in their 70s and another who was only in their early 30s. A person in their late 60s passed away Sept. 29.
Health Director David Badger said deaths were a “lagging indicator” of the virus’ impact, coming in higher numbers toward the end of a wave.
“Deaths are going to come later, and that's always been the reality of it,” he said. “Obviously, we had experienced a lot of deaths here locally in the last six weeks.”
Badger said more than half of the county's COVID-19 deaths have occurred in the six weeks since the Delta variant took hold in Cherokee County.
“In mid-July, right about the time we started to see things spiking back up, we had experienced 42 COVID deaths from the beginning,” Badger said.
Total cases down
Even with the recent deaths, Badger said the county and state were seeing decreases in the total number of cases and hospitalizations. Last week’s positive test results were noticeably lower compared to prior weeks, with the figure staying in the single digits on Sept. 28-29, with seven and eight cases, respectively.
“If you look at both national and statewide numbers, it's a fairly consistent trend,” Badger said. “Statewide, we've also seen a decline in hospitalizations. Just anecdotally, talking to local hospitals, they're still busy, but it's not the same kind of ferocious pace that it was.”
Data released Sunday by Union General Hospital in Blairsville, Ga., showed the facility's five-bed intensive care unit was not over capacity for the first time in several weeks. Of 59 total inpatients at Union General, 32 are COVID-19 patients. Of the 32, only two were vaccinated.
“That's all boding well for this recent wave or cycle of COVID,” Badger said.
He added that it was hard to say whether the downward trend would continue.
“If you would look at how it's cycled down before, you would anticipate that it would continue to cycle down, where you get into much lower transmission rates and stay there for a while,” Badger said. “I guess it's all going to depend on whether it continues to escalate again, based on other variants and other factors.”
From Sept. 28 through Monday, there were 81 positive test results reported for COVID-19 at the health department, 72 who had contact with previously reported cases. All but two of those testing positive developed symptoms, although none have been hospitalized and they have all been isolated.
Since the pandemic started through Monday, the health department has conducted 20,518 tests, 15,964 which were negative, Of the 4,519 positive tests, 4,330 have been released, 91 are deceased and 98 are active.
According to the N.C. Department of Health & Human Services, 58 percent of state residents ages 18 and older have been at least partially vaccinated, while 53 percent have been fully vaccinated. There have been 11,216,850 total vaccine doses administered statewide so far.
Vaccination rates
Badger reported that vaccine uptake remains low in Cherokee County, but the health department continues to distribute the shots.
“We're still seeing new demand for it, which is good, but we're still overall pretty low,” Badger said.
He said about 45 percent of county residents had at least received a first dose of the vaccine, with 40 percent fully vaccinated.
“There's signs of optimism, but I don't think that it’s something that we need to rest on our laurels, either. The reality is that when there's still 60 percent of our population that's unvaccinated, it puts us at risk for continued transmission,” Badger said.
He emphasized that the vaccine was the main tool to protect against the virus, but also spoke to the success of monoclonal antibody treatments. He said the treatment was available at Erlanger Western Carolina Hospital in Peachtree as well as in Clay County and north Georgia.
Badger emphasized that the treatment has proven to be effective, but needs to be administered in the early stage of the virus to be effective.
“It's one of those deals where you really need to kind of talk to your provider and go ahead and make plans to get the treatment,” he said. “There's a statewide standing order, so there should not be any real barriers for folks to go in and get the treatment.”
The health department continues to offer vaccines at no charge for ages 12 and up at the office in Murphy. For details, call 837-7486.