ROCKINGHAM — Richmond County is nearing the 2,000 mark for COVID-19 cases with 25 more being reported Friday.
The latest update brings the month’s total to 132 in just the first four days of December. The Health Department reported 23 cases on Tuesday, 51 on Wednesday and 33 on Thursday.
There are currently 216 active cases — 202 under home isolation, 14 hospitalized — setting a new record high. The number of hospitalizations previously reached 14 on Oct. 9.
Over the past two days, Richmond County Schools has reported that three traditional students — two at Washington Street and one at Monroe Avenue — as well as a staff member from Mineral Springs have tested positive. That makes 15 school-related cases this week.
Overall, RCS has had 42 staff members, 89 virtual students, 25 traditional students and eight workers in the central office test positive.
Health and Human Services Director Dr. Tommy Jarrell said health officials expected a “dramatic increase” of cases, hospitalizations and fatalities in the weeks following the Thanksgiving holiday.
According to Jarrell, the Health Department has found multiple cases from this week that are connected to a symptomatic person attending a Thanksgiving gathering — despite pleas from Gov. Roy Cooper and Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen to keep gatherings limited to the household.
Jarrell added that he is not aware of any main clusters and that the cases are coming from “all over the place.”
“I don’t know when we’re going to hit that plateau,” he said.
For the second consecutive day, the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services reported more than 5,000 new cases, with 5,303 on Friday. A new one-day record was set Thursday with 5,637.
“We have strong orders in place to fight back against this virus, but people and businesses must take these orders seriously,” Gov. Roy Cooper tweeted on Friday. With a vaccine on the horizon, let’s not get complacent now.”
Jarrell said the vaccine will have an impact, but “it’s not going to be available to everyone at one time.”
Frontline healthcare workers will get the first shot at the vaccine, which involves two doses 21 days apart, Cohen said earlier in the week. The state is expected to receive nearly 85,000 doses of the first round, once one is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“This virus doesn’t care that we’re tired of it,” Cooper said on Twitter the previous day, “and it will keep spreading rapidly unless we all work to stop it.”
The state also hit another record high of COVID-related hospitalizations as of Dec. 3, with DHHS reporting 2,157 being treated for the coronavirus. The hospitalization total has increased nearly every day since Nov. 7.
Image from DHHS
FirstHealth reported on Friday that 57 of its 367 patients (15.5%) are being treated for COVID-19.
DHHS reports there have been a total of 5,461,220 tests completed in the state, with 382,534 positive cases. There have also been 5,467 COVID-related deaths in the state, including 42 in Richmond County, the latest of which was reported earlier in the day.
Of the 59,567 tests completed by FirstHealth: 6,356 have been positive; 52,276 have been negative; and 307 results are still pending.
Richmond County has had 18,509 negative test results, 1,982 positive results, and 1,724 recoveries.
“The number of people being tested has been really high everyday this week,” Jarrell said Friday. But, he added, test results don’t return consistently.
“You can have a lot of people tested one day, but all the results don’t necessarily come back the next day,” he said, adding that it can take up to three days.
Jarrell speculates that the lag in result time could be due to the volume of tests being performed across the state.
The Health Department is offering free COVID testing in the lot behind the building until Dec. 31. Testing will run from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday — except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
There will also be free testing at the following locations:
- Cole Auditorium parking lot – 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 7-11
- Ellerbe Middle School parking lot – 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Dec. 14-18
Each site is closed for lunch from noon-12:30 p.m.
Register for testing by visiting www.lhi.care and following the directions at the top or by calling 877-562-4850.
Jarrell said the Health Department has requested the company return for January.
BY THE NUMBERS
The number of local cases per age group are as follows (includes recoveries):
- 0-18 – 296 (+3)
- 19-30 – 337 (+7)
- 31-40 – 259 (+2)
- 41-50 – 350 (+1)
- 51-64 – 412 (+7)
- 65-older – 328 (+5)
( + indicates the increase in cases per age group from the previous report.)
The total number of cases per ZIP code are as follows:
- Rockingham – 1051 (114 active)
- Hamlet – 580 (77 active)
- Ellerbe – 171 (19 active)
- Hoffman – 153 (3 active)
- Mount Gilead – 10 (0 active)
- Marston – 16 (3 active)
- Jackson Springs – 1 (0 active)
Seventy-one of the state’s 100 counties have now experienced more than 1,000 total cases, and four others — Anson, Bertie, Cherokee and Macon — are nearing that mark with more than 900 each.
Only three counties have had fewer than 200 cases, and they are all in the northeast corner of the state: Tyrrell (142), Camden (192), and Hyde (189).
The total numbers (including recoveries) for surrounding counties are as follows:
- Mecklenburg – 45,627 (other counties to top 10,000 are Wake, Guilford, Forsyth, Durham and Gaston. All are among the state’s 10 most-populated counties.)
- Union – 8,376
- Stanly – 3,128
- Montgomery – 1,446
- Anson – 978
- Moore – 3,163 (383 active, 66 deaths)
- Hoke – 2,081
- Scotland – 2,053
- Robeson – 7,607 (more than higher-populated counties New Hanover and Buncombe)
All numbers are from DHHS except Moore, which are from the local health department, as there has been a discrepancy with the state.
Robeson, Hoke and Montgomery counties are among those listed as having critical community spread by DHHS. The report hasn’t been updated since Nov. 23, but it’s likely Richmond and Scotland counties could wind up in the same category.
The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control is reporting (as of Dec. 2) 1,814 total cases and 54 deaths in Chesterfield County and 1,481 cases and 19 deaths in Marlboro County.
