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County picks up 7 cases since Thursday

POLK COUNTY—Polk County’s confirmed coronavirus cases slowly increased over the past week from 10 last Monday to 19 by Tuesday morning.

The previous week, there were no new confirmed cases in Polk County.

County officials announced its 10^th case last Monday, its 11^th case on Wednesday and its 12^th case on Thursday. Sunday morning, county officials announced it had 14 total cases and by Monday morning the number of confirmed cases rose to 17. The county added 2 more by Tuesday morning.

As of Friday afternoon, Polk County reported that it had tested a total of 133 patients for the COVID-19.

Of the total tests, 12 have tested positive, 115 have tested negative and 6 were still pending as of Friday afternoon.

Of the positives tests, 66.7 percent are female and 33.3 percent are male, according to Polk County Division of Health and Human Services data.

The ages of the positive include 5 people who are 25-49 years old, 5 people who are 65 and older and two cases that are 50-64 years old, according to the county’s data.

The county opened a drive-through testing center on Thursday at the former county jail in Columbus and reports that 6 tests were completed on the first day. The drive-through test center will be on Thursdays at the site by appointment only.

Anyone with symptoms who wishes to be screened should call their healthcare provider or the county’s COVID-19 medical line at 828-722-5086.

County officials said they plan to update the testing and COVID-19 information every Friday.