Dare County has performed 9,341 COVID-19 tests since March, per Tuesday update

Dare County released the following COVID-19 update for Tuesday, August 18, which details the county’s most recent active cases, testing efforts, and additional community information.

Dare County COVID-19 Case Update

The total COVID-19 positive case count in Dare County is 402, of which 11 are considered active cases and 9 of those are active in Dare County. Of the 402 cases, 216 are residents and 186 are non-residents.

Since the last Dare County DHHS Update issued Friday, August 14 2020 there have been 12 new positive cases. Of these 12 cases, 5 are residents and 7 are non-residents. The Dare County website has already been updated to reflect all of these cases.

Of the 5 resident cases since Friday, August 14th

• 1 of the cases is symptomatic and acquired the virus by direct contact with an individual who tested positive outside of Dare County
• 2 of the cases are not connected, one symptomatic and one is asymptomatic. Both acquired the virus from  family members who tested positive outside of Dare County
• 2 of the cases are not connected, both symptomatic. It is unclear how these individuals acquired the virus which indicates community spread.

Of the 7 non-resident cases since Friday, August 14th:

• 1 of the cases is symptomatic and acquired the virus by direct contact with an individual who tested positive outside of Dare County
• 1 fo the cases is symptomatic and acquired the virus from a family member whose positive test result was reported on 8/14
• 2 of the cases are family members, both symptomatic. It is unclear how the individuals acquired the virus which indicates community spread
• 2 of the cases are not connected, one symptomatic and one asymptomatic. It is unclear how these individuals acquired the virus which indicates community spread.
• 1 of the cases is symptomatic and acquired the virus by direct contact with an individual who tested positive on 8/12/2020

Contact tracing has been completed on all 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.

For the 4th week in a row we have seen a decrease in the number of new positive cases in Dare County. The week of July 20 there were 55 new cases, the week of July 27 there 42 new cases, the week of August 3rd there were 21 new cases and this past week there were 18 new cases.  We are very pleased with these numbers and strongly encourage everyone in our community to continue to exercise good personal responsibility. We want to see this trend of lower case numbers continue and in order for this to happen we all must continue to use the proven tools we have available.  Please remain vigilant and 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 1,101 COVID-19 diagnostic tests performed in Dare County. 1093 were performed by local healthcare providers and 108 were performed at the community testing event held on August 11th. This brings the total number of tests performed since early March to 9,341.  There were 18 positive cases between August 10 and August 16. The percent of positive tests to overall tests in Dare County since we started testing in early March decreased again this week for the 4th week in a row, to 4.24%. The percent positive to total tests for the past week alone was 1.63%. Syndromic surveillance of the emergency department showed a drop in the number of individuals presenting with COVID-19 related symptoms. However, local urgent care centers continued to see a high number of patients presenting with COVID like symptoms over the past week.  These graphs can be found on the dare county website at www.darenc.com/covid19

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.