By Connie Leinbach
Hyde County continues to be in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I believe each day is going to be just more or if not, if not on a daily basis, every two or three days,” Luana Gibbs, Hyde County health director, said in an interview Thursday. “I just believe that we’re really in the heat of this.”
For “a while,” she said, each day we will break a record of new cases in the state.
“I believe each day is going to be just more or if not on a daily basis,” she said, “then every two or three days.”
Her department reported Friday afternoon a total of 491 cases with 142 of those active; 341 recoveries and five deaths.
However, the North Carolina Department of Health & Human Services COVID-19 website reported 439 cases with 70 of those on Ocracoke and six deaths.
Gibbs confirmed that the county may have had “three or four” more deaths above the five in the current tally.
“Because we have to review the cases and we honestly have not had an opportunity to do that,” she said.
“It’s pretty busy,” she said about each day’s workload. “And I think that’s par for the course across the whole state. Between trying to test and trying to vaccinate, it’s a lot.”
About vaccines, she said they are receiving allotments on a weekly basis.
Nation-wide, more than 370,000 people have died from coronavirus in the U.S. and more than 22 million cases have been reported. Each week sets a record for deaths and hospitals and ambulances are overwhelmed.
To the north, after two consecutive days reporting more than 50 COVID-19 cases, the Dare County Department of Health and Human Services reported a considerably lower number of cases (18) on Jan. 8. Fourteen of those cases involve residents of Dare County and four involve non-residents. All of them are isolating in Dare County or in their home county.
Statewide, the NCDHHS COVID-19 website reports 614,355 total cases for the state as of 10:50 a.m. today. There are 11,581 newly reported cases, 3,871 hospitalizations and 7,425 deaths from this virus.
“In the 10 months since we’ve been fighting this pandemic, this is the most worried I’ve been for our state,” said Dr. Mandy Cohen, NCDHHS secretary.
While there have been an overwhelming majority of recoveries from this virus, the worry health officials have is COVID-19 cases overwhelming the hospital system.
According to Google’s COVID tracker, globally there are 89 million cases with the United States having 22 million of those. India has the next largest number at 10.4 million cases.
Earlier this week, Cohen issued a directive from her office that all need to wear a face mask at all times and maintain physical distance (at least six feet) from people when outside your home to the maximum extent possible.
She and Gov. Roy Cooper cautioned in stark terms against leaving your home for any reason other than for work, school, health care needs or groceries.
