ROCKINGHAM — The Richmond County Health Department on Thursday announced new hours for the COVID-testing clinic.
LHI has been contracted through the end of February to provide a free drive-thru clinic behind the Health Department.
The new hours for the clinic are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on Saturdays.
After two days of inflated numbers, the Health Department reported 16 new positive cases.
The number of active cases increased slightly to 278, with 262 under home isolation.
Since testing began last spring, the Health Department has recorded a total of 3,831 residents have tested positive and there have been more than 28,000 negative results.
Richmond County Schools on Thursday reported that one virtual student at Richmond Early College High School tested positive.
This is the first case involving a student since schools started back this week. Eight staff members at six schools tested positive earlier this week.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services reported 5,495 new coronavirus cases statewide. More than half of Wednesday’s 12,000 cases were from earlier in the year and late December.
DHHS updated the county alert system on Thursday, showing that only 61 counties are considered to have critical spread. The last report, issued Jan. 21, showed 86 counties in the red.
Richmond and surrounding counties are still red.
(See the report attached as a PDF at the bottom of this story.)
For the most part, the state’s COVID statistics have been on a downward trend in the past week, including hospitalizations.
DHHS reported 2,630 COVID-related hospitalizations across North Carolina on Feb. 3. That number has been dropping steadily since peaking in mid-December.
Richmond County’s hospitalizations remained at 16 after hitting a high of 27 on Jan. 21. FirstHealth reports that 54 of its 391 patients (13.8%) are COVID-positive, and Scotland Memorial Hospital has 22 patients isolated.
“Moving in the right direction!” Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen tweeted Thursday. “This is evidence that the 3Ws, and all the hard work happening across our state – from testing to tracing to vaccines – is having a positive impact.”
According to DHHS, 513 Richmond County residents have received both shots of the two-dose Modera vaccine. Records show 4,043 have received only the first dose.
County Health and Human Services Director Dr. Tommy Jarrell previously told the RO that around 12,000 residents had signed up to receive the vaccine this week.
Earlier in the day, the Health Department reported the county’s 77th COVID-related death, the first of the month. There have been 24 local COVID-related deaths in 2021. There were 150 statewide between Wednesday’s and Thursday’s reports, bringing North Carolina’s total to 9,728.
