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The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, and Hyde County is experiencing an uptick in cases, the Hyde County Health Director said recently.
“We need the public (and those who are positive cases) to adhere to public health standards,” said Luana Gibbs, health director, in a Friday press release.
As of Friday, the health department recorded 15 positive cases in the county. Out of 680 cases since case tracking began in 2020, 657 have recovered and there have been eight deaths. As of April 16, there were 22 positive cases, but as of the end of March, there were two cases.
The first area of Gibbs’s concern is contact tracing.
The health department is currently using Carolina Community Tracing Collaborative (CCTC) to perform case investigations and contact tracing.
“If you receive a call from this organization and you do not answer, they will identify themselves as calling on behalf of the Hyde County Health Department and ask you to call the statewide call center at 844-628-7223,” Gibbs said. “Please follow all of their instructions. This is imperative so that information can be given to help slow the transmission of the virus.”
The second area of concern, Gibbs said, is adherence to the orders patients are provided for isolation and quarantine.
Legal action can be implemented when cases and contacts do not follow the guidelines they are given.
“This is not the route I wish to take when people do not comply, but it is a route that is available and I have used this in the past,” she said. “Please, just comply with directions and get through your isolation period. We do not want a spike in cases, any more loss of lives or severe sickness. We want to get done with COVID so we can go back to how we lived in 2019.”
The Hyde County Health Department is offering COVID-19 vaccines to anyone 18 years of age and older.
To schedule an appointment, please call 252-926-4467.
