Polk County had its 42nd lab-confirmed case of COVID-19 on Monday, an increase of 15 cases since April 30. KROX talked with Polk County Public Health Director Sarah Reese to get more information on the cases in the county.
“We are currently at 42 lab-confirmed cases of COVID in Polk County,” said Reese. “That is a jump up from later last week. We’ve had 15 additional cases since then. The average age of our cases is 36, and the age range is from under one year to late 60s. We currently have two individuals that are hospitalized, and we wish them all a speedy and well recovery. I do not have an updated number for individuals who have completed isolation since last week.”
Reese said she doesn’t know the specific number of cases in the county that can be tied to LM Wind Power but that there are cases linked both to direct contact and community transmission in the county, according to Reese, “I know there are people who have had cases that are known to have been exposed by someone else with the COVID virus, and a variety of people that have community spread, meaning that they don’t know how they got the virus.”
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released an updated list of symptoms associated with the virus last week. “People with COVID certainly have a wide range of symptoms they are reporting. Last week those symptoms did get expanded. Those symptoms are quite vast, everything from a cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, and then a myriad of other symptoms such as fever, chills, shakiness, sore throat, muscle pain, or headache. One of the new ones that we’ve seen is a new loss of taste or smell,” said Reese. “Children have similar symptoms to adults but have generally been having a more mild illness. I can’t speak to all of the details. Some reported symptoms that I’ve heard for children include cold-like symptoms such as a fever, runny nose, and cough. Then I’ve also heard of vomiting and diarrhea being report. Again, the CDC is following all the different individuals that have had a lab-confirmed test to monitor what symptoms they are seeing.”
With youth and adult recreation programs being canceled over the past week, Reese said it would be important to try new things and come up with ways to maintain physical health through the crisis. “I know that we have all been able to be adaptable during these last couple of weeks, where we’ve all had to make changes to our way of life,” said Reese. “And I can be assured that we will continue to resilient going into the summer. When the sunshine comes, it’s a great opportunity to go outside and maybe, try new activities that we’ve never done. It certainly means we will have to retrain our brain in terms of being creative in the things that we would historically do, and the things we may or do this summer may be different. All the more time to think outside the box and yet, not get wrapped up in the details. Spending time with family and friends doesn’t have to be inordinate. It can simply be talking, playing cards, going for a walk or bike ride. But we all need to work together to keep up both our physical and emotional health as we navigate through uncharted waters related to the COVID response.”
