Carroll County Covid-19 cases climbing

As the state continues to break records for the number of people hospitalized with Covid-19, along with new highs in the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, Carroll County cases have climbed to a cumulative total with 1,417 confirmed and probable cases with 23 deaths as of Nov. 30.

Testing and the number of cases in the state were down Thanksgiving weekend, but an increasing number of tests are coming back positive in Carroll County,

“Carroll County’s percent of test positivity as of November 29 was 19.6, the fifth highest in the state,” resident Crystal Ursin, who has been closely monitoring the pandemic, said. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines recommend the positivity level to be below 10 percent, so ours is quite high.”

She is particularly concerned that there were 410 new cases from October 29 to November 29.

“That’s an average of about thirteen new cases a day, extremely high for a county with such a small population,” Ursin said. “One in twenty people in Carroll County has tested positive for Covid-19 since the pandemic began.”

Ursin said higher numbers mean more people are capable of spreading this virus and not enough people are following Arkansas Department of Health and CDC guidelines.

“If we were to all wear masks, social distance and stop gathering for parties, our numbers would go down quickly,” Ursin said.

In Eureka Springs on Thanksgiving Day families and friends could be seen enjoying the outdoors as recommended. However, there were reports of large numbers of cars parked at some homes in outlying parts of the county where there has been more resistance to social distancing and wearing masks.

One rural resident asked, “If this is so bad, why don’t I know anyone who has gotten sick?”

It may be due to the concept of exponential growth. The CDC estimates that each person infected with the virus infects at least two people. Those two people spread it to four people, four people give it to eight, and those to 16 people and so on.

Carroll County’s seven-day trend for active infections per 1,000 people went up from 5.81 to 6.45 as of Nov. 20, according to data from the ADH. As of Nov. 21, 2,403 people had died of Covid-19 in Arkansas. A total of 8,520 have been hospitalized. Of the 156,247 people in Arkansas who have tested positive for Covid, 136,872 are considered recovered by ADH.

One Carroll County woman reportedly recently tested positive for the virus that causes Covid-19 for a second time. She initially tested positive in March.

According to ADH’s Physician and Provider Guidance for SARS-CoV-2 Relapse vs Re-infection, “Based on current observations, it is recognized that patients have multiple immunological and clinical responses to primary infection with SARS-CoV-2. Many patients, regardless of degree of symptoms, can have persistently positive PCR test results, some for months. At the same time, viral cultures document that they are not shedding live transmissible virus. Viral cultures are negative in symptomatic, recovered outpatients by 10 days and in less than 20 days in very ill or immunocompromised hospitalized patients.”

For patients greater than three months past their initial infection and who develop a new onset of symptoms, ADH recommends that they be treated as a possible new infection with isolation and repeated Covid-19 PCR testing.

“At this time, only rare cases of Covid-19 reinfection have been identified worldwide,” the ADH guidance states. “The Health Department would like to be notified of these cases for further investigation. In some cases, these individuals are asymptomatic and have been identified as part of testing related to surveillance activities. Regardless, they should be treated as possible new infections and isolated per standard protocols.”