Following trends seen elsewhere in North Carolina and across the country, COVID-19 cases in Cherokee County are finally starting to decline.
From Oct. 12 through Monday, the Cherokee County Health Department reported 42 new positive test results for the coronavirus and only one death, a local resident who was in their mid-50s. The county's COVID-19 death total stands at 94.
“We’re really trending in the direction we hoped, which is a downward trajectory of infections in our community,” Cherokee County Health Director David Badger said. “That’s a positive thing that continues to follow a lot of the same national and statewide trends that occurring as well.”
Badger also addressed the death in the county last week. He has repeatedly emphasized that COVID-19 deaths are a lagging indicator, showing what the county has been through, rather than the situation it is facing with the virus.
“Hopefully, at some point as a community we get to a point where people aren’t immeasurably suffering from COVID, so that will be a good thing,” he added.
Of the new positive test results, 38 of the residents have developed symptoms, and 34 did not know the source of transmission. None of them have been hospitalized, and all are isolated.
Vaccine update
Badger said the county’s vaccination numbers continued to slowly climb, with more people making the decision to receive the shot. He added that the county is giving Pfizer booster shots to those in need.
“We’ve had a busy week,” he said. “We’ve started doing flu vaccines as well, but (COVID-19) vaccines are staying about the same.
“We’re still seeing some general interest kind of sustained day in and day out for first doses, and also continuing to see increases around a third/booster, and we maybe anticipate some more of that as Moderna and Johnson & Johnson get formally approved for the technical boosters.”
According to the N.C. Department of Health & Human Services, 46 percent of county residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, with 42 percent of the county full vaccinated.
Badger said he anticipates the Pfizer vaccine being approved for ages 5-11 soon, possibly by the beginning of November.
“I’m hopeful, hopeful being the key word, that we’ll see a big interest in that,” he said. “We’ll be prepared either way, but we’ll certainly have the vaccine readily available to administer once it does get approved for that population.”
The health department offers vaccines at no charge for ages 12 and up at the office in Murphy. For details, call 837-7486.
Status of pandemic
Badger said it’s difficult to predict the direction of the pandemic going forward, but he emphasized that the virus would likely exist in some form even if it becomes less of a threat.
“I know there are a lot of people who are saying that this is the final hurrah of COVID, what we’ve come to with the Delta variant,” he said. “There’s obviously variants of interest at the national and worldwide level that people are following and tracking, so we never know.
“The more people that obviously get vaccinated in combination with the more people who’ve had a recent infection helps to kind of lessen the chance of possibilities of transmitting the virus.”
Badger said the Delta variant has taught the community not to take the virus for granted.
“They mutate for a reason,” he said. “They find those small changes that make it where they can transit more easily or maybe become more infectious or have more significant symptoms. I think the reality is we’ve always got to be prepared from an individual perspective to the greater county perspective.”
Badger pointed out the importance of being ready to protect the community should the pandemic worsen.
“We’ve got to be prepared to bring on greater infection controls and lessen risks during times of night transmission,” he said, “then kind of take your foot off the gas pedal a little bit when there’s times of lower transmission.”