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LEDGER – The Yancey County Health Department, part of Toe River Health District, was notified at 9:30 p.m. Sunday, May 3, that a Yancey County resident has tested positive for novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.
It is the first known case of COVID-19 in Yancey County and the individual is in isolation.
Yancey County has been preparing for this reality and anticipated the community would likely be affected at some point, said Diane Creek, health director, in a press release. Public health staff have already initiated an investigation and will be identifying close contacts to contain the spread of disease. To protect individual privacy, no further information about the case will be released.
The Yancey County Health Department will keep the public informed by announcing any additional cases that may arise through its local media partners.
“It is important for the community to understand that the identification of a case does not change our local strategies for preventing and reducing the spread of disease,” Creek said. “Above all else, please isolate yourself at home if you are sick.”
The positive case in Yancey County leaves Avery County as the lone county in the state without a known positive case of COVID-19.
As of press time Monday, May 4, 85 people had been tested in Avery County with 82 negative and three pending results. Mitchell County has had five positive cases out of 127 people tested and 10 results are still pending. All five people in Mitchell County have recovered and there are no active cases. Yancey County has 104 people tested with four results pending and one active case.
Laboratory-confirmed cases reflect cases that were tested and returned positive, including the NC State Laboratory of Public Health and reporting hospital. Not all cases of COVID-19 are tested, so this does not represent the total number of people in North Carolina who have or had COVID-19.
Visit www.nc.gov/covid19 and click “case count dashboard” for numbers from all 100 counties. The numbers are updated at 11 a.m. daily.
There were 143,835 tests completed and 11,664 known cases in North Carolina as of Sunday, May 3, with 442 deaths and 475 people hospitalized.