(Spirit Lake)– While the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 continues to go up in Dickinson county, public health officials say they’re encouraged the increase hasn’t been as great over the past week or so compared to what it was earlier. Even then, Doctor Zach Borus of Lakes Regional Healthcare and Dickinson County Public Health says the number of cases per capita locally remains a concern…
“We have had fewer new cases in the last week which is great, but we still continue to rise. Per capita we’ve had about 1,450 or so cases per 100,000 residents which puts us high up in the U.S. number.”
Doctor Borus says their attention now is turning to concern for the potential of another spike in cases following the 4th of July…
“We hope that that does not fill up our hospital. At this point we had, in the last week we’ve had two inpatients here at Lakes who do have Coronavirus. We are still caring for one of them. We’ve also transferred a number of them from here to Sioux Falls for a higher level of care. At this point that’s still an option. There’s still one that’s critically ill up there, as best we know.”
Doctor Borus again urges everyone to wear a facial covering, practice social distancing and to continue to use good hygiene, especially over the upcoming weekend.
As of this morning the total number of cases in Dickinson county was at 254 with 146 recoveries.
