PORT ANGELES – At Friday morning’s Covid-19 briefing, Health Officer Dr. Allison Berry Unthank first updated the numbers. Our county’s total number of cases is now at 249 with 238 patients fully recovered. 1 patient with cardiac complications has been hospitalized out of county. The person was diagnosed outside Clallam County but lives here.
Our rate per 100,000 population is now at 26, which puts us slightly out of the low-risk category, but the Dr. feels that the numbers are generally holding steady. With 32 days now below 75 on the that scale, schools are set to open for in-class learning on Monday, starting with kindergarteners.
“There’s certainly been some consternation. I think a lot of folks want their kids back in school earlier. The challenges, what we have seen in other parts of the country… so, for instance, much of the South opened all classes, and they saw a massive spike in cases in kids in the school-age range. We have seen that that doesn’t work well. Large groups of kids in groups, just as we expected, can transmit this virus. So we have to do it carefully. We have to do it with spacing. I feel very confident in the plans in Clallam County. We do plan on bringing more kids back, but we just need to do it slowly and safely.”
The Dr. spoke about the excitement around the federal government’s promise of increased availability of rapid antigen testing, which detects early infection within 30 minutes.
“I want to let folks know that while we are very excited about that development, it so seems to echo our previous challenges in March. There’s a lot more promises than there is actual availability of these tests. We have received at least three of those machines in Clallam County and they have all been sent to long-term care facilities, which I think is an appropriate place for them to go, to really prioritize access for those high-risk population. But we do not have widespread availability of rapid antigen testing yet.”