On Wednesday, Polk County reported two new cases of COVID-19 and three new cases in the past week for a total of 84 positive tests. Of the previous 81 cases, 69 were out of isolation, and there had been two deaths in the county.
Polk County Public Health Director Sarah Reese said she is curious to see if there will be an increase in positive cases following the Fourth of July. “We currently have 84 lab-confirmed cases in Polk County,” said Reese. “We are seeing this trickle effect of cases and I am curious to see how our case count goes over the next couple of weeks since we are coming off a holiday weekend. There are many instances and reasons why people were spending time together or outside of their household unit. It will be interesting to see if we have an increase in cases. I’m hopeful we don’t see an increase, but I will be watching that closely.”
Reese said she thinks it’s vital that people continue to be diligent about personal precautions for COVID-19. “The good old handwashing is still really important, use of hand sanitizer, keeping that social distancing. That six feet of social distancing is really important because what we know about how COVID-19 is spread from droplets from one person to the next that is very helpful to be intentional about that,” said Reese. “Certainly, there has been much conversation about wearing cloth face coverings when indoors in a public setting. Last but not least, I would say if you are sick to contact your local health care provider to determine if you should be evaluated for COVID.”
Reese said the impact COVID-19 has had on different people’s lives varies. “Some people have been very minimally impacted. Haven’t had much change in their day-to-day life, and others have been drastically impacted whether its death of a family member, they themselves are sick, or they’ve had changes to their work because of COVID. Every person has had such a diverse experience as it relates to the pandemic, so one thing I’d like to highlight is that I appreciate our businesses having creative solutions around keeping their workers safe and bringing visitors into their business,” said Reese. “I also want to thank those that have been purposeful about social distancing, and are cleaning and disinfecting so that when people come to their establishment, the patrons understand how the business is going to operate when they come to visit them.”
Reese added she’d encourage businesses to share how they are responding to COVID-19, “How are they responding? Are they doing delivery or still doing curbside pickup? How are they doing things differently, or how have they had to pivot I think is critical information for the public to know rather than making assumptions or having hearsay about how a business is going to operate.”
Reese is also releasing a weekly or bi-weekly video update on COVID-19 on Thursdays. “If listeners aren’t aware, I’ve been doing a weekly or every other week update on Thursdays on the Polk County website,” said Reese. “We have COVID hub or COVID specific site. I’ve been doing a short video, and we’ve also been providing some data and links to critical pieces of guidance for safely reopening businesses or other types of functions that are happening.”
The updates can be view both on the Polk County COVID HUB here or on Public Health’s Facebook page here.
