Four more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Dare County—all of them between the ages of 25 and 49—according to today’s Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard.
The case total locally is now 150, 82 residents and 68 nonresidents.
“The majority of cases continue to experience mild to moderate symptoms,” Dr. Sheila Davies, director of the DCDHHS, also reported today, but a “few cases have experienced severe illness.”
Two of the currently 40 active cases—one Dare County resident and one nonresident—are hospitalized in critical condition outside of the area, Dr. Davies said in her regular Tuesday update. These hospitalizations have been long-term.
Of the four new cases reported today, two are Dare County residents, and two are not. Three are men, and one is a woman, according to the dashboard.
All four are in home isolation in their respective resident counties.
Since Dr. Davies’s last update on Friday, 24 new COVID-19 cases have been diagnosed locally—11 residents and 13 nonresidents. She detailed the circumstances of the 24 cases as follows:
Of the 11 residents:
*Two are family members: One acquired the virus by community spread and infected the other. They are both symptomatic.
*Four are close contacts who acquired the virus by direct contact with cases whose results were previously reported on the dashboard. They are all symptomatic.
*Four are not connected and acquired the virus by community spread. They are all symptomatic.
*One is asymptomatic and acquired the virus by community spread.
Of the 13 nonresidents:
*Six are close contacts who acquired the virus by direct contact with the people who infected the first group of four residents above. Four of them are symptomatic, and two are not.
*One is asymptomatic and acquired the virus by direct contact with another person whose result was previously reported on the dashboard.
*Five are not connected and acquired the virus by community spread. All of them are symptomatic.
*One acquired the virus by direct contact with a family member and is asymptomatic.
What jumps out at us is that 50 percent of these 24 people are believed to have acquired the virus by community spread. One more acquired COVID-19 after coming in direct contact with a family member who had acquired it by community spread.
UPCOMING TESTING EVENTS
COVID-19 diagnostic testing appointments still remain for Thursday’s testing event at Fessenden Center in Buxton, which starts at 10 a.m. All of the antibody appointments have been filled.
Of the 344 antibody tests conducted at the first local antibody testing clinic, held June 30 in Kill Devil Hills, only eight were positive. Seven people tested positive for COVID-19 among the 379 diagnostic tests done at the same event.
Another COVID-19 antibody and diagnostic testing clinic will be held next Tuesday, July 14, at 1 p.m., at the Dare County Parks & Recreation facility, 602 Mustian St., in Kill Devil Hills.
Appointments are required of all registrants, and only permanent Dare County residents age 10 or older may register. To schedule an appointment for this Thursday’s or next Tuesday’s event, you may call (252) 475-5008, Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Future no-left-turn weekends in Southern Shores this summer will be discussed at the Town Council’s meeting.
We would like to remind you that the Southern Shores Town Council meets for its regular monthly meeting today at 5:30 p.m. in the Pitts Center. Please see The Beacon, 7/4/20, for a preview of the agenda, or click on the following link:
In-person attendance at the meeting will be limited by physical-distancing requirements. If you have a Zoom account, you may access the meeting in real-time on that website with the meeting ID 985-6739-9679 and the password 623394.
For any questions about participation in the meeting please contact Town Clerk Sheila Kane at skane@southernshores-nc.gov. All public comments that you would like to have read into the record should be emailed to Ms. Kane, too.
This will be new town manager Cliff Ogburn’s first Town Council meeting since he started work last month. The Council will hold a workshop session on Tuesday, July 21.
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LOCAL MEDIA have reported that the Dare County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved yesterday a settlement in a federal lawsuit filed by non-resident Dare County property owners who claimed that their constitutional rights were violated when the County prevented them from accessing their properties from March 20 until the week of May 4.
According to The Outer Banks Voice, Dare County agreed in the settlement to classify and treat non-resident property owners as if they were residents in future public-health emergencies and to pay $16,500 in legal costs.
The settlement only applies to public-health emergencies as defined by the World Health Organization, Dare County Attorney Bobby Outten told The Voice, and does not affect how non-resident Dare County property owners will be treated during hurricanes or other natural disasters.
Mr. Outten also told The Voice that the settlement is not an admission of fault or liability on the part of Dare County.
This lawsuit, known as Bailey v. Dare County, is separate from the class action lawsuit, Blackburn et al v. Dare County et al, filed in federal court May 15 that seeks monetary damages from the County and the six beach towns for denying non-resident property owners access to their properties. (See The Beacon, 6/6/20.)
Ten more people tested positive for COVID-19 in Dare County, most of them under the age of 25, according to today’s Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard, while hospitalizations statewide hit a single-day record high of 982.
The case total in Dare County is now 146.
Of the 10 new COVID-19 cases in Dare County, four are county residents, and six are nonresidents; five are males and five are females.
Seven of the new cases are between ages 18 and 24; and the remaining three are a 17-year-old, a person between ages 25 and 49, and a person between ages 50 and 64.
The four Dare County residents are in home isolation locally, as are four of the nonresidents. Two nonresidents have transferred to isolation in their home counties.
The North Carolina COVID-19 dashboard reports 1,546 new COVID-19 cases today, out of 15,008 completed tests, for a positive-test rate of 10 percent—the first time the rate has been in the double-digits since June 8.
In the past two months, the single-day positive-test rate has been 10 percent or higher only twice. (The Beacon’s records do not go back before May 4.) Any rate above 5 percent is worrisome to public-health officials.
Dr. Sheila Davies, director of the DCDHHS, will detail the mode of transmission in the COVID-19 cases reported since last Friday in her videotaped update tomorrow.
Two male 17-year-olds are among the three new COVID-19 cases reported today by the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services. The other case is a man between the ages of 18 and 24.
Two of the three youths are Dare County residents, and the third is a non-resident. All three young men are in home isolation in Dare County.
The total number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 locally is now 136.
Today’s dashboard also shows that five residents who were in home isolation in Dare County have recovered or been symptomatically cleared. There currently are 32 active COVID-19 cases in the county.
This is a view of East Dogwood Trail at the Dick White Bridge on Sat., June 13, 2020. Yesterday’s traffic did not come close to backing up on East Dogwood.
Good afternoon, everyone:
From what we observed and heard from Southern Shores residents, yesterday’s left-turn prohibition produced mixed results, but, generally, it had a positive effect.
Some of you reported traffic backups on the northern end of Sea Oats Trail that started as early as 9 a.m.—for those closest to Duck Road—and did not subside until 5:30 p.m.
Sea Oats Trail resident Ursula Bateman said that as of 1:30 p.m. her street was “wall-to-wall” with traffic, the backup of which she estimated started around 10:30 a.m.
Many drivers, Ms. Bateman said, came up from Sound View Trail, in the belief they could save time by taking that semi-circular road that connects to Sea Oats Trail at both ends. This is a regular occurrence on summer weekends, she said.
Ms. Bateman also reported witnessing her first “bathroom break” on the lawn across the street from her home around 11:30 a.m.
On Hillcrest Drive, however, the traffic backups were sporadic, not continuous. By 5:30-6 p.m. yesterday, Vicky Green, who lives on Hillcrest Drive near the tennis courts, said it was “all clear.”
“Traffic was not bad at all during the day,” Ms. Green observed.
Others saw motorists turning around at the Marketplace, at Duck Woods Drive, and even in the middle of U.S. Hwy. 158 before the “Welcome to Southern Shores” sign in order to double back to South Dogwood Trail and turn right.
Michael Walton, who watched nine vehicles turn around in Duck Woods Drive in an estimated span of 10 minutes, said the first driver in the line “actually sat in the 158 turn lane into Duck Woods so long she either fell asleep or was ‘recalculating.’”
It is a shame she did not recalculate and head east on U.S. 158. Others might have followed.
Still others witnessed motorists traveling to Food Lion and then turning around, which is a predictable detour that cannot be prevented.
Recalling the June 2018 and last month’s no-left-turn weekends, we would say that the U-turn frequency yesterday was much higher than previously experienced.
Perhaps the fact that it was the Fourth of July, and more people were on the road than typically are in June, influenced the increase. No question, there was a steady flow of motorists using the cut-through route yesterday after having turned around to avoid the left-turn prohibition.
We did not hear yesterday from anyone on Wax Myrtle Trail, Juniper Trail/Trinitie Trail, or Duck Road. We hope no news was good news.
Despite the earlier arrivals and the U-turners, we think the volume of cut-through traffic yesterday was less than it would have been without the left-turn prohibition in effect. The traffic-count data will tell us more.
People tend to try to arrive on a Saturday, especially when it is a holiday, early enough so that they can enjoy the evening in the Outer Banks.
Based on the traffic volume alone, the barrels blocking the left-turn lane could have been removed at 6 p.m.
In June 2018, the left-turn prohibition was in effect from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day. We are not sure why the Town Council elected to try different hours. It is an issue worth discussing.
Please weigh in with your comments about yesterday’s no-left-turn experience.
Today, we experienced a rush of motorists leaving the beach via Hickory Trail between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., but the arriving traffic has been very slight. It is peaceful on the road. We suspect the traffic flow on U.S. Hwy 158-east is moving well.
If you would like to submit a public comment about the NLT weekend to the Town Council for its Tuesday meeting, you may email Town Clerk Sheila Kane at skane@southernshores-nc.gov. Use the subject line, “Public Comment for July 7 Town Council Meeting” and be sure to include your name and address.
Remember, you will not receive an acknowledgment of your email until Tuesday because Town Hall is closed tomorrow.
You also may appear in person to comment. The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. in the Pitts Center. Seating will be limited by social-distancing restrictions.
Seven more people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Dare County, all of them under the age of 50, according to today’s Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard. The local case total is now 133.
Three of the seven new cases are Dare County residents, and four are non-residents. All of them are in isolation in Dare County, the dashboard reports.
Five of the seven cases are between the ages of 18 and 24, and two are between the ages of 25 and 49. Three are men, and four are women.
In other local COVID-19 news, one of the three Dare County residents who were hospitalized out of the area, as of yesterday, has transferred to home isolation, according to the dashboard.
Statewide, the N.C. Dept. of Health and Human Services reported 1,413 new cases today, out of 19,003 completed tests, for a 7.4 percent positive-test rate. There are now 945 COVID-19-related hospitalizations statewide, six fewer than yesterday. Three more COVID-19-related deaths have occurred in North Carolina, bringing fatalities to 1,395.
Drivers will not be able to turn left from eastbound U.S. Hwy. 158 on to South Dogwood Trail from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. today and tomorrow.
The left turn on to South Dogwood Trail at U.S. Hwy. 158 will be blocked from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. today and tomorrow, a prohibition approved June 1 by the Town Council that will be enforced by two Southern Shores police officers on the scene.
By a 4-1 vote at its regular June meeting, the Town Council approved the implementation of two more no-left-turn weekends this summer and scheduled them for July 25-26 and Aug. 1-2, with the advice of Police Chief David Kole. The Council may decide at its meeting Tuesday to change one or both of these weekend dates.
The Town Council meets next Tuesday, July 7, at 5:30 p.m. in the Pitts Center. You may attend the meeting in person or join by Zoom videoconferencing. Seating in the Pitts Center will be limited by social-distancing restrictions.
While the Council seeks to alleviate the crush of northbound cut-through traffic that prevents Southern Shores residents from freely traveling to and from their homes and otherwise seriously inconveniences and endangers them, the Council also seeks to obtain vehicle counts on residential streets and on N.C. Hwy. 12 when the left turn is blocked. The Council will be studying the effects on traffic flow.
Mayor Tom Bennett dissented from the June 1 vote to authorize three no-left-turn weekends this summer, but seems to have been convinced since then to take action by what he called at the Council’s June 16 workshop meeting the “unhealthy situation” posed by cut-through traffic.
(The Mayor is featured in a You Tube video about the cut-through traffic and the no-left-turn weekends that was posted in yesterday’s Town newsletter.)
Mayor Bennett initiated a plan to prohibit drivers from turning left from eastbound 158 on to South Dogwood Trail over the weekends of June 20-21 and June 27-28—which the Town Council unanimously approved—but only the June 20-21 no-left-turn weekend took effect.
The second weekend was canceled, Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Morey told The Beacon, because the Town did not have police resources to dedicate to the event, and the Town of Kitty Hawk, which has jurisdiction at the U.S. Hwy. 158 intersection, would not sign off on the weekend without police presence being guaranteed. (See The Beacon, 6/21/20.)
The Town Council is scheduled at its Tuesday meeting to vote upon a budget amendment to cover the costs for the three no-left-turn weekends, as well as to consider a resolution prepared by Town Attorney Ben Gallop that gives notice to surrounding jurisdictions and to “mapping and traffic direction application vendors” that the left turn on to South Dogwood Trail will be prohibited during the three weekends.
The Beacon expects both the budget amendment and the resolution to be approved unanimously.
Each no-left-turn weekend is budgeted to cost $6,500: $3,700 for the rental of barrels to place in the left-turn lane on U.S. Hwy. 158, and $2,800 for two police officers to observe the intersection and ensure enforcement.
Tommy Karole, chairperson of the citizens’ committee to study cut-through traffic, has advised the Town Council that the Global Positioning System (GPS) and WAZE, a GPS navigation app that gives live traffic alerts about congestion, will not send drivers on to streets that municipalities have closed by ordinance.
A resolution does not have the effect of law, which a town ordinance is. We will be interested to learn Tuesday from Mr. Gallop or new Town Manager Cliff Ogburn whether either or both has had contact with GPS and WAZE about their recognition and enforcement of a resolution.
It certainly cannot hurt to have the Town give notice of its intentions to block the no-left turn on three weekends, starting today.
As usual, we welcome your observations and comments concerning traffic on your street, wherever you live in Southern Shores. Please feel free to contribute comments on the Beacon blog or on the Beacon’s Facebook page. Thank you.
As we write this (between 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m.), we hear and see a heavy flow of traffic traveling on Hickory Trail in both directions. This has become commonplace with weekly vacation home renters being asked to vacate at 9 a.m.
TOWN COUNCIL TO SPEND MONEY ON TUESDAY
Tuesday’s Council meeting is top-heavy with the consideration of FY 2020-21 budget amendments, the most expensive of which is $437,676 to be appropriated for payment of the engineering, design, and permitting phase in the Town’s 2022 beach nourishment project.
According to the amendment, $250,000 of this appropriation will eventually be paid by Dare County, which offers this amount to municipalities for studies related to beach nourishment.
The Town of Southern Shores paid for its own beach-profile and beach-management studies, without seeking funding from Dare County, but, according to former Interim Town Manager Wes Haskett, the County will give it $250,000 for the engineering-design phase of its nourishment project.
The Town’s contractor is Coastal Protection Engineering of North Carolina, formerly known as APTIM, and the project manager is CPE-NC’s president, Ken Willson, who has managed all of Southern Shores’ short-term beach studies and recommended that the Town conduct nourishment to protect the shoreline from future potential catastrophic storm damage.
Other budget amendments before the Council Tuesday are reappropriations of monies approved in FY 2019-20, including:
$10,000 for the installation of a fence at the new Southern Shores Volunteer Fire Dept. station, which is still not finished. This fence is for the protection of adjacent private landowners.
$8,265 for painting the Southern Shores Police Department building.
$15,200 for the construction of crosswalks at the intersection of East Dogwood Trail and Hickory Trail and at East Dogwood Trail and Woodland Drive.
The Town Council also plans to resume its discussion about the repaving/reconstruction of Dewberry Lane, which is a short road off of Bayberry Trail on which three houses front. The Town has already spent $10,302.50 on this road project: $1,600 for surveying, $3,715 for “testing,” and $4987.50 for engineering, according to a summary of costs that appears on page 28 of the meeting packet.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic compelled the Town Council to retreat on capital improvement expenses in FY 2020-21, the Town received two bids on the Dewberry Lane project, the lowest of which came from RPC Contracting, Inc. RPC has informed the Town that it will honor its price of $82,250, if the Council decides to move forward.
The Council appropriated $198,759 for infrastructure projects in its FY 2020-21 budget.
Spending more than $92,000 on redoing Dewberry Lane, a quaint side street that only gets traffic coming and going to three residences, seems excessive to us. But the Capital Infrastructure Improvement Planning Committee assigned Dewberry Lane a priority status, and the Town put the road reconstruction project out for bid.
Dewberry Lane will become a cul de sac with curbing like other formerly quaint side streets in Southern Shores, such as nearby Mistletoe Lane, have become.
As usual, there will be two public-comment periods during the Town Council’s Tuesday meeting.
Town Hall will be closed Monday for the Fourth of July holiday.
Happy Fourth of July, everyone.
Please avoid crowds and wear your mask! We will not be able to stop the spread of COVID-19 locally if people do not observe basic infection-control measures and conform their behavior to simple public-health recommendations.
Plus, we are not crazy about publishing COVID-19 case updates. They take us away from reporting on Southern Shores business.
Five more people tested positive for COVID-19 locally, all of them under age 50, according to today’s Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard.
In her case update today, DCDHHS Director Dr. Sheila Davies reports that since her last update Tuesday 29 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in Dare County, 23 of whom acquired it by direct contact.
In news statewide today, confirmed COVID-19 cases topped 2,000 for the first time, with a single-day record of 2,099 cases based on 28,173 completed tests, for a 7.5 percent positive-test rate.
Hospitalizations also hit a single-day record at 951, up 39 since yesterday.
Nearly 1 million tests for COVID-19 have been completed in North Carolina since the pandemic began.
DARE COUNTYTODAY
Of the five new cases reported by the DCDHHS dashboard today, three are residents and two are non-residents. All are in isolation in Dare County.
Two of the five are 17 years old, one is between the ages of 18 and 24, and two are between the ages of 25 and 49. Two are males, and three are females.
The five bring Dare County’s total number of reported COVID-19 cases to 126.
DARE COUNTY SINCE TUESDAY
In her report of the 29 new COVID-19 cases diagnosed since Tuesday, Dr. Davies breaks down the mode of transmission as follows:
Of the 12 Dare County residents:
*Seven are close contacts who acquired the virus by direct contact. All seven are connected to 14 other cases that were previously reported. Three of these people are symptomatic, and four are asymptomatic.
*Two are close contacts who acquired the virus by direct contact and are connected to seven other cases previously reported. Both of these people are symptomatic.
*Three are not connected and likely acquired the virus through community spread. All three are symptomatic.
Dr. Davies has previously announced that many of the residents recently diagnosed with COVID-19 acquired it at a large party at which attendees did not social distance or wear face coverings.
Of the 17 non-resident cases:
*Eight are close contacts who acquired the virus by direct contact with a person whose positive test was reported on June 25. One of them is symptomatic; the others are not.
*Six are close contacts who acquired the virus by direct contact with the residents who attended the large gathering. Two are symptomatic, and four are not.
*Three are not connected and most likely acquired the virus by community spread outside of Dare County. All three are symptomatic.
RESULTS OF ANTIBODY & DIAGNOSTIC TEST CLINIC
Of the 375 people who were tested for COVID-19 at Dare County’s first antibody and diagnostic testing event on Tuesday in Kill Devil Hills, seven were positive. These seven cases were included in the DCDHHS dashboard report yesterday.
Of the 343 people who underwent antibody testing at the event, eight were positive.
About 30 tests are still pending, according to Dr. Davies’ update today, and four of the COVID-19 diagnostic tests were inconclusive.
The next antibody and diagnostic testing clinic will be held on July 9, starting at 10 a.m., at Fessenden Center in Buxton. All antibody appointments have already been filled, but diagnostic appointments are still available.
Permanent Dare County residents who are at least 10 years old may call (252) 475-5008 to schedule an appointment.
Ahead of the July 4th holiday weekend, Dr. Sheila Davies is speaking out: “I am very concerned about the potential for rampant spread of COVID-19 based on reckless and irresponsible behavior,” she said in a videotaped message posted around 5 p.m. today.
Just as Dr. Mandy Cohen, Secretary of the N.C. Dept. of Health and Human Services, did yesterday at a press briefing, Dr. Davies singled out large gatherings, with people refusing to wear face coverings and to social distance, as Petri dishes for COVID-19.
She firmly asked people to behave better, by observing the simple infection-control measures that we all know by heart, saying that, otherwise, there will be “significant spread in weeks ahead.”
The majority of the cases reported in Dare County in the past 10 days, Dr. Davies said, have been transmitted by “local spread.”
Twenty seven people who tested positive recently for the coronavirus are “directly linked” to one large party, according to Dare’s Director of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, either because they attended this ill-conceived event or because they came in contact later with someone who did.
One of these people, she said, is hospitalized outside of the area.
Dr. Davies also criticized noncompliant “direct contacts” whom the DCDHHS’s tracers have called, saying they have “hung up on” tracers, “spoken to [them] inappropriately,” “refused to cooperate” with them, “refused to provide critical information for contact tracing,” and “indicated they will not comply with quarantine or isolation.”
The health director said she has had no choice but to issue quarantine and isolation orders, which have legal force and can result in a penalty being assessed against the violator.
We say use the legal means available to you, Dr. Davies, to compel compliance with proven infection-control measures. Public-health workers should only have to do battle with diseases, not with the ignorance of people who spread them.
Eight more people have tested positive locally for COVID-19, according to today’s Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services dashboard. All eight are between the ages of 18 and 24, an age group that accounts for 36 percent of the 121 COVID-19 case total in Dare County.
Five of the eight people are Dare County residents, of whom one is in the hospital and the others are in home isolation.
All three of the non-residents are isolating in Dare County.
Four of the people are women, and four are men.
Single-day case reports statewide today and during the past two days have been high—today’s count was 1,629, and yesterday’s was 1,843—but the positive-test rate among the tests completed has declined to between 5 and 5.7 percent, which is encouraging.
The Southern Shores Beacon 