As COVID-19 cases jump in Talbot County, health officials are urging local residents to continue to wear masks, frequently wash hands, and maintain social distancing.
Cases in the county have nearly doubled in nearly three weeks, from 111 to 221 as of Thursday morning. The county’s positivity rate also has drastically increased, with the 7-day average at 8.34%.
Dr. Fredia Wadley
“We’ve seen our cases steadily go up,” Dr. Fredia Wadley, Talbot County’s health officer, said.
“The important part is we’ve been doing a lot of testing,” she said. Nearly 14% of Talbot’s population has been tested, with 927 tested at the Easton High School testing site.
As tests have increased, the county’s positivity rate has jumped from 2.38% on July 5 to more than 8% for the past three days.
“We’re actually the highest in the state,” Wadley said, noting that since it is a 7-day rolling average the number can jump around a bit.
While the positivity rate was increasing, the county also was seeing an increased number of cases, suggesting there were not a large number of asymptomatic patients.
Similar trends are occurring in Queen Anne’s County.
“This is telling you there’s a real spread of the virus in Talbot and Queen Anne’s,” Wadley said.
The state also is seeing increased cases and hospitalizations over the past few days and COVID-19 hospitalizations on the Shore also have risen, but are nowhere near available surge capacity or the region’s record highs.
A big concern with the increased cases is that hospitalizations and deaths tend to lag behind.
“We usually recognize, first a lot of cases, then a lag, then an increase in hospitalizations, then a lag, then deaths go up,” Wadley said.
“Talbot County didn’t have a lot of cases when we went into the stay-at-home order,” she said. “We got feeling pretty good about ourselves.”
“It’s not business as usual,” Wadley said. “Business has to help us and the public has to help us.
“It sounds very simple. But when you don’t have a vaccine or (a treatment), it’s the simple things like wearing masks, social distancing and washing hands,” that make a difference, she said.
Alan Boisvert says
Wonder what Contact Tracing has to say about the most recent increase of cases in Talbot/Queen Anne’s. Perhaps they would indicate the
problem area such as bars, restaurants, etc. Please do tell us Health department.
Cathy Young says
Can’t we get more information than cases are going up? Where are people getting it? Is it flusters or is this 100 random citizens who contracted it.
John Fairhall says
Are local governments (e.g., Easton, Oxford) and the county actively enforcing mask-wearing and social distancing, especially at bars-restaurants?
Tom Alspach says
Over the past 6 to 8 weeks Hogan has steadily “reopened” the state — even though we never achieved his own criterion for reopening (14 days of declining new cases). He caved to the business community, and now we will pay the price.