PORT ANGELES – There was one new case of COVID-19 reported at Wednesday morning’s briefing by Health Officer Dr. Unthank. She said the person works in Jefferson County but lives here, and is now on home isolation. That brings the total to 10 known positive cases in Clallam County after 578 people have been tested, with 42 tests pending.
Unthank added that 6 of those patients have fully recovered.
Her next order of business was clear up an apparent mistake on the State’s website.
“Apparently there was an error on the State website yesterday where, for a brief period of time, all of our cases moved from the case column to our death column. We have had no deaths in the county. It was just a typo on the state’s end. They have since fixed it, but we have had no deaths from COVID-19. All of our current cases are home and either in isolation or have recovered.”
One piece of good news is that Clallam County will be getting 500 new test kits from the state Department of Health in the next few days, and the plan is to rapidly deploy those tests this month on anyone suspected of having coronavirus in order to detect those cases as early as possible.
Unthank discussed one particular concern she had about reports she’s getting that a lot of people have been avoiding their regular primary care needs during this time of social distancing.
“We do actually recommend that you continue to get primary care. One thing we worry about is that if people actually stop getting medical care right now, things like their diabetes and their blood pressure can get out of control, and we know that out of control things like diabetes and blood pressure can actually put you at more risk from COVID-19. So we actually to do really want you to get medical care right now. Another group that we really want to continue to have medical care is our children. We have heard of people canceling their well-child checks and not taking their children to get things like vaccines. We really need people to be vaccinated right now. We do not need another outbreak on top of this outbreak. And it is safe to continue to get standard medical care given the work that has been done in these clinics to make sure that infection control principles are followed.”