COVID cases increase in health district

North Central District Health Department has been made aware of 158 cases in the district since the last reporting on Oct. 29: 12, Antelope; 7, Boyd; 5, Brown; 33, Cherry; 47, Holt; 0, Keya Paha; 28, Knox; 26, Pierce; 0, Rock.

NCDHD has been informed of three additional deaths in the district: a Holt County male in his 70s and two Pierce County females in their 70s and 80s.

Effective immediately, North Central District Health Department will transition to reporting COVID-19 case counts on Mondays and Thursdays only. Recoveries will be included on the Thursday report.

Due to the influx in cases, resources and time needed to contact cases and ensure close contacts are notified, there has been a gap created in completing recovery contacts.

NCDHD reaches out to each positive case before reporting the case as recovered. NCDHD is working diligently to close the gap on active cases as quickly as possible.

To increase transparency with the nine-county district, NCDHD will begin to report a total number of new cases received in the last 14 days, to help community members understand an estimate of active cases. For Nov. 2, the NCDHD region has added 437 new positive COVID-19 cases in the past 14 days.

NCDHD TestNe clinics will resume next week with the following schedule:

Monday, Nov. 9, in Bassett, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the fairgrounds

Pre-registration on testnebraska.com for a testing time is preferred, but not required. Testing at these events is free.

Case count update as of 4 p.m., Monday, Nov. 2, include: 1,628 total cases, 659 recoveries, 25 deaths and 437 total cases reported in the last 14 days.

A reminder that total case numbers are represented first, and of those total cases the number of recovered persons is represented second, and total case-related deaths is represented third.

Antelope: TC: 203, R:76,

D: 1

Keya Paha: TC: 7, R: 2

Boyd: TC: 78, R: 24

Knox: TC: 357, R: 180, D: 1

Brown: TC: 94, R: 43, D: 2

Pierce: TC: 284, R: 108, D:11

Cherry: TC: 159, R: 85, D:5

Rock: TC: 76, R:61

Holt: TC: 370, R: 80, D: 5.