ROCKINGHAM – Three more Richmond County residents have passed away after contracting COVID-19, according to the Health Department.
The deaths were announced in a press release Sunday morning, with local health officials saying they occurred within the past 24 hours.
The latest deaths bring the county’s total to 75 since the first was reported in April 2020.
It appears, based on previous reports that all three residents passed away at a hospital, as that number now stands at 53. There have been 18 to die at another healthcare facility and four to die outside of a health setting.
The race and gender breakdown is as follows: 14 African American females, 12 African American males, two “other race” females, one “other race,” male, one Hispanic female, two American Indian males, 23 Caucasian females and 20 Caucasian males.
All patients have been between the ages of 31 and 95: 21 have been 80 or older; 22 have been in their 70s; 23 in their 60s; eight in their 50s; and one who was 31.
All three residents were in their 60s and one was an African American female, one a Caucasian female and the other a Caucasian male, based on previous reports.
There have been 22 COVID-related deaths during the month of January, the most of any month during the pandemic. Eight were reported in the final week.
There were also 15 to pass away in October and 13 in December.
As of Sunday, there were 9,287 COVID-related deaths in North Carolina, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services, with 245 occurring within the past three days.
According to Johns Hopkins University, as of 12:55 p.m. Jan. 31 there have been 440,094 COVID-related deaths in the U.S. and 2,223,969 globally.
Statewide hospitalizations, which had been on a steady incline over the past two months, dropped below 3,000 on Friday for the first time in more than a month, down to 2,782 on Saturday.
Daily cases numbers for the state are also decreasing, with fewer new cases reported Saturday and Sunday combined than the record high of 11,581 set on Jan. 9.
