Another Dare County resident has died of COVID-19, according to the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services, which reported the death today, but did not update the number of fatalities and new cases on its COVID-19 numbers dashboard.
Today’s COVID-19 dashboard still shows yesterday’s numbers.
(UPDATE 2/9: We are still seeing yesterday’s numbers on the dashboard on all of our computers, but The OBX Today reported updated numbers this morning. Apparently, the person who died had been hospitalized.)
Five Dare County residents have died of COVID-19 in the past week. The DCDHHS described one of the people in a report as having been hospitalized and recorded a reduction in the number of hospitalizations on its dashboard to suggest that three others were hospitalized, too.
The DCDHHS has given no details about the individuals’ ages or sex.
We strongly suspect that all five people were residents of Peak Resources, the nursing home and rehabilitation center in Nags Head where a COVID-19 outbreak recently occurred. We await confirmation and/or clarification from Dr. Sheila Davies, DCDHHS director, as to whether this is true.
There is no privacy interest that would prevent Dr. Davies from confirming (or not) that the five people who have died were residents of Peak Resources. It is in the interest of the Dare County public, and public health generally, to know why the number of local residents who have died from COVID-19 has nearly doubled in a week.
Twelve Dare County residents have died as a result of an infection with SARS-CoV-2 since last March.
The DCDHHS also reported that, as of yesterday, it had administered 7,197 first doses of the Moderna vaccine and 662 second doses of the vaccine.
The DCDHHS has 600 first doses of vaccine scheduled to be administered between now and Feb. 18, and 2,821 people on its waiting list, to be contacted when vaccine becomes available, according to the DCDHHS vaccine dashboard.
Last week the DCDHHS reported that it would have only 300 first doses of vaccine this week and next week and would be informed later by the N.C. Dept. of Health and Human Services how many first doses it will receive after the week of Feb. 15.
(Please note: We did not expect to write today, but we feel obligated to recognize publicly the death of a member of our community from COVID-19.)
Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 2/8/21
The Southern Shores Beacon 