Dare County sees smallest increase in new COVID-19 cases since the week of June 15th, per Tuesday update

Dare County released the following COVID-19 update for Tuesday, August 11, which details the county’s most recent active cases, testing efforts, and additional community information.

The total COVID-19 positive case count in Dare County is 384, of which 25 are considered active cases in Dare County. Of the 384 cases, 210 are residents and 174 are non-residents.

Since the last Dare County DHHS Update issued Friday, August 7, 2020 there have been 15 new positive cases. Of these 15 cases, 3 are residents and 12 are non-residents. The Dare County website has already been updated to reflect all of these cases.

Of the 3 resident cases since Friday, August 7th 

• 1 of the cases is symptomatic and acquired the virus by direct contact with family members who tested positive outside of Dare County
• 2 of the cases are symptomatic. It is unclear how these individuals acquired the virus, which indicates community spread.

 Of the 12 non-resident cases since Friday, August 7th:

• 5 of the cases are family members, all symptomatic, who acquired the virus by direct contact with an individual who tested positive outside of Dare County.
• 2 of the cases are symptomatic and acquired the virus by direct contact with an individual who tested positive outside of Dare County
• 4 of the cases are not connected, all symptomatic. All of these individuals acquired the virus by direct contact with individuals who acquired the virus outside of Dare County.
• 1 of the cases is symptomatic, It is unclear how this individual acquired the virus, which indicates community spread.

Contact tracing has been completed on 12 of the cases and direct contacts provided by these individuals have been identified, notified, and directed to quarantine for 14 days from the last date of exposure with the positive case. The 14 day quarantine requirement is very important to slowing the spread of the virus as the incubation period for this virus is 2 – 14 days. We are working to complete contact tracing on the other 3 new cases.

While we saw an increase in hospitalizations this past week, we also saw the smallest increase in new cases since the week of June 15th. We have now had 2 consecutive weeks of reduced numbers of new cases. This is encouraging, however we must not interpret it to mean the virus is less prevalent in our community. We have seen an increase in compliance with practicing the 3Ws which we know are proven tools to help us reduce the spread. Please remain vigilant so we can keep this trend of lower case numbers. Please continue to follow the 3Ws to help protect you, your family, and our community from COVID-19.

• Wear a cloth face covering if you will be with other people.
• Wait 6 feet apart. Avoid close contact.
• Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or use hand sanitizer

Key Metrics

Each week we review the 4 key metrics associated with disease investigation and surveillance. The metrics are:

• Number of Tests
• Confirmed Cases
• Positive Tests as a Percent of Total Tests
• COVID Like Illness Surveillance

This past week there were 749 COVID-19 diagnostic tests performed in Dare County by local healthcare providers.. This brings the total number of tests performed since early March to 8,240.  We had 21 positive cases between August 3 and August 9. The percent of positive tests to overall tests in Dare County since we started testing in early March decreased again this week for the 3rd week in a row, to 4.59%. The percent positive to total test for the past week alone was 2.8%, which is the lowest weekly percentage since the week of June 22nd. Syndromic surveillance of individuals presenting to the emergency department with COVID-19 related symptoms indicated similar activity to the previous week. Local urgent care centers continue to see a high number of patients presenting with COVID like symptoms.  These graphs can be found on the dare county website at www.darenc.com/covid19

Testing

We are partnering again with Mako Medical Laboratories to host another testing clinic today, Tuesday, August 11, 2020 starting at 1:00 p.m. at Dare County Parks & Recreation located at 602 Mustian St, Kill Devil Hills, NC. Individuals can still register for an appointment for the diagnostic test, the antibody test, or both. Pre – Registration is required.and can be done by calling  252.475.5008.

COVID Questions and Guidance

If you have specific questions regarding COVID-19 please use the resources we have available. We welcome your phone calls at the COVID-19 call center at 252-475-5008 or you may email us your questions at covid19@darenc.com. We use social media as a tool to help share information with the public but we do not use that as the platform to answer specific questions. Please contact us directly via phone or email if you would like a response to a specific question.

Communications and Information Sharing

Dare County DHHS has an established schedule of communication to share information regarding COVID-19. On Tuesdays, a written update and a video update which includes an overview of the previous week’s COVID-19 key metrics is issued, and on Fridays a written update is issued. All released videos and written updates can be found on our website, DHHS facebook page, Dare County Twitter page, and Dare Emergency Management Twitter page. If you would like to receive these updates directly to your email, please sign up to receive our enotifications.

New positive cases are updated on the dashboard on our website and shared on the DHHS facebook page when we receive them. To find the most up-to-date information on COVID-19 cases in Dare County visit www.darenc.com/covid19. State COVID-19 data is available at https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard.