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County gains 4 new cases this week

POLK COUNTY—As of Friday, Polk County had a total of 132 cases of COVID-19, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.

The county remained at 5 deaths, with 4 of the deaths being from the Saluda zip code and 1 death being from the Tryon zip code, according to the NCDHHS.

The county picked up 4 cases of the virus this week, with the county reporting 128 total cases last Friday.

Polk County Public Health officials released a different format for reporting COVID-19 cases last week, which included a note that if a person tests positive multiple times, that person is only counted once in the total case count.

Polk County as of last Friday had a total of 128 positive cases, with 98 if those cases presumed recovered. With 5 deaths in the county, that means that there are currently 29 patients with the virus.

County officials also noted last week that patients who relocate outside of the county will no longer show up in Polk County’s positive count.

The county also began showing cumulative hospitalizations, which as of last Friday were at 12.

Current outbreaks were listed at 2 as of last Friday, with cumulative positive cases from outbreaks at 5 and zero deaths.

The new totals for this week were not available as of press time.

County officials said that an outbreak is defined as 2 or more cases in a group living facility. A cluster is defined as 5 or more cases in a child care center or school. For more information on how an outbreak or cluster is defined, people can visit the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services website.

Most of the positive tests as of July 24 were in people age 65 and older at almost 50 of the cases. The next highest age group has been people aged 25-49 at more than 30 of the positive cases and more than 20 of the cases have been in people aged 50-64, according to county data.

The county has also had about 10 positive cases in the 0-17 age range and more than 10 positives in the 18-24 age range.

More women than men have contracted the virus in Polk County, with 57.03 percent being female and 42.97 percent being male.

As of Friday afternoon, North Carolina had 122,148 confirmed cases and completed 1,757,102 tests.

Buncombe County has 1,605 positive cases with 46 deaths; Henderson County had 1,344 cases with 53 deaths; Rutherford County had 628 cases with 13 deaths and Transylvania County had 121 cases with 1 death, according to the NCDHHS.