COVID-19 cases added another 27 cases to the pandemic count last week. This brings the total number up to 814 cases, all within 1 year's time. Currently, 36 cases are active which means they are still infectious and public nurses are tracking these cases.
So far there have been 27 hospitalizations for the area during this pandemic with 10 deaths. The case rate is now at 295.7 per 100k over a 14 day period as opposed to being under 100 a couple of weeks ago.
"We were kind of excited with this downward trend that started mid-January through a couple of weeks ago," said Pacific County Health Department Director Katie Lindstrom. "Unfortunately, we are making a dive right back up for now. We are really, really hopeful this is just a blip and we can get that back under control and get us back down."
"Once you get an outbreak it can take a while to contain that," she continued. "We really want to encourage people to continue to be vigilant even if you have gotten your vaccine or even if it feels like things are getting better. It really just takes a handful of cases and then some of these people are not wearing masks and continuing to socialize in large groups. It really can spread and that is what we are experiencing right now. We want to ask people to continue with the mask wearing and the social distancing."
"With kids back in school with high school athletics, it is really really important that we encourage students to wear their masks all the time," said Pacific County Risk Manager Kathy Spoor. "Not just when the teacher is looking or the coach is looking. We had a bit of an outbreak here in north Pacific County and it has a tremendous impact on those student-athletes who have been looking forward to playing. When you have an athlete who tests positive if there hasn't been social distancing or mask wearing then we end up quarantining entire teams or the majority of teams and that impacts other teams in the area and the community that were looking forward to having games."
According to Spoor it only takes one slip-up during this pandemic to gain a large impact on COVID cases.
"With more and more people getting vaccinated we anticipate that things should get better somewhat soon, but we are not quite there yet to the point where we can let off of those measures," commented Lindstrom.
For up-to-date information and guidance, please monitor the Pacific County Health and Human Services Facebook page or visit: www.pacificcountycovid19.com.