Two more Dare County residents have tested positive for COVID-19 and are in home isolation, according to the final report today on the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard.

Their cases bring the total new cases reported today to four and the total overall to 62, split evenly between residents and non-residents and males and females.

Yesterday, DCDHHS reported nine more people had tested positive for COVID-19—an alarming single-day record total that is more than double the number of cases of the previous single-day high.  Seven of the nine were non-residents, as were 14 of the last 16 positive cases reported.

The DCDHHS explained the rise in COVID-19 diagnoses among non-residents as the result of vacationers seeking tests at urgent care centers after either experiencing viral symptoms or hearing from people outside of the area that they had direct contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. (See an earlier post by The Beacon today.)

The latest two positive cases are a man and a woman, one of whom is between the ages of 25 and 49, and the other of whom is between the ages of 50 and 64.

UPDATE ON WEDNESDAY: Governor Cooper is expected to announce today during a 3 p.m. briefing how North Carolina’s reopening will progress when Phase Two expires at 5 p.m. Friday. The statewide COVID-19 “metrics” that he and public-health officials are tracking do not support moving into Phase Three, but the Governor will likely find it difficult to delay the reopening by extending Phase Two. He will also address imposing a statewide face covering mandate.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 6/23/20

 

 

Dare County has reported its 60^th case of COVID-19—another male non-resident between the ages of 18 and 24—and provided an update explaining that the health department is “seeing a number of vacationers go to the area urgent care centers for COVID-19 testing,” where they are being diagnosed.

Of the 60 cases, 29 are Dare County residents, and 31 are non-residents.

According to a DCDHHS bulletin posted at 1 p.m. today, the vacationers being tested in urgent care either “are symptomatic or they have been contacted by someone from back home who informed them they were a direct contact to a positive case.”

As soon as they are tested, according to the Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services, they immediately are classified as a “PUI,” or a “person under investigation” and are ordered to quarantine for up to 14 days.

If their test result comes back positive, DCDHHS notifies them and informs them “of the specific duration of their isolation period,” the bulletin states.

The county “cannot force them to leave Dare County,” the DCDHHS continues. “Some choose to leave and some choose to stay.” It further elaborates:

“We call them every day while they remain in Dare County to check in on them and when they go home, we transfer their case to their home health department to finish out their isolation monitoring.

“The day we call them to give them their positive result we also immediately start work on contact tracing which includes everyone in their house at the present time as well as any other contacts they may have had while in Dare County prior to testing or onset of symptoms. All direct contacts are notified they are to quarantine for 14 days and encouraged to get testing—right away if they have symptoms, or if they are asymptomatic they are asked to wait six days from their day of exposure to be sure they don’t get a false negative.

“Being in the same grocery store or at the same gas station as an individual who tests positive does not make you a direct contact. Being six feet or closer for 10 minutes or greater to an individual who tests positive makes you a direct contact.”

LATEST 16 CASES

Since last Friday’s COVID-19 update by DCDHHS, 16 new positive cases have been diagnosed: two of them are residents, and 14 are non-residents. (The Beacon miscounted earlier, when 15 had been diagnosed, and corrected our count.)

The two residents, according to the update, are not connected. They are believed to have acquired the virus through community spread and are symptomatic and recovering in home isolation.

The DCDHHS describes the 14 non-residents as follows:

*Five are household contacts, of whom two are symptomatic, and three are asymptomatic. They acquired the virus by direct contact with another non-resident household member whose case was reported by the DCDHHS on June 18.

*Two are siblings, both of whom are symptomatic and acquired the virus by a direct contact with a positive case outside of Dare County.

*Three others are symptomatic and acquired the virus through direct contact with people who tested positive outside of Dare County. None of these cases is connected.

*All 10 of the above people have been transferred to their home counties and are in isolation there.

*The remaining four people share a household. Two of them are symptomatic, and two are asymptomatic. DCDHHS believes one of the individuals in the household acquired the virus through community spread or travel and transmitted it to the other three household members. All four are in home isolation in Dare County.

The non-resident cases reported recently suggested to The Beacon parent-child and sibling relationships. This bulletin seems implicitly to confirm that.

The latest case, No. 60, has been transferred to isolation in his home county, according to today’s dashboard, making him one of the 10 described above.

JUNE 30 TESTING APPOINTMENTS, NEXT ANTIBODY TESTING CLINIC

There are no appointments remaining for COVID-19 antibody testing on June 30 at the Dare County Parks & Recreation facility, 602 Mustian St., in Kill Devil Hills. All 357 available appointments have been booked.

Appointments remain for the COVID-19 drive-thru diagnostic testing on the same day, at the same time, and also starting at 10 a.m. To schedule an appointment, you may call (252) 475-5008 on Monday through Friday, between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. For more information about testing, please check out www.darenc.com/covidtesting.

The DCDHHS will announce details about a second COVID-19 antibody testing clinic by July 1.

(PLEASE NOTE: This is The Beacon’s last post today about COVID-19 unless DCDHHS reports more positive test results, in which case we will report on them late tonight. Thank you.)

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 6/23/20

 

(EDITOR’S NOTE: We had hoped to publish the following article before last weekend, but were unable to do so.)

The Southern Shores citizens’ cut-through traffic committee supports the Town Council’s decision to conduct a three no-left-turn-weekend trial this summer, even though it does not believe, as chairperson Tommy Karole said in an email last week to the Council, that this measure is a “long-term viable solution to solve the traffic problem in our town.”

The committee continues to look at other options for traffic control, according to Mr. Karole, who contacted the Council before it voted unanimously at its June 16 workshop meeting to implement a left-turn prohibition at eastbound U.S. Hwy. 158 on to South Dogwood Trail last weekend and this upcoming weekend.

The Town subsequently canceled the June 27-28 no-left-turn weekend. (See The Beacon, 6/21/20.) The next scheduled no-left-turn weekend is July 4-5. The Town Council has discussed holding the other two no-left-turn weekends on July 25-26 and Aug. 1-2.

“We will analyze the data collected during the three-weekend trial and look forward to submitting our findings this fall,” Mr. Karole wrote in an email that was read aloud at the Council’s June 16 meeting. “In the meantime we offer these suggestions to help ensure a successful trial” [which The Beacon has edited for style]:

1. Placing signage on the north and south ends of the Wright Memorial Bridge alerting drivers to the no-left turn at U.S. Hwy. 158 and South Dogwood Trail.
2. Reprogramming of the left-turn arrow light at the entrance to South Dogwood Trail to solid red. [The N.C. Dept. of Transportation informed Interim Town Manager Wes Haskett that it would do this. We do not know if the reprogramming occurred last weekend.]
3. Placing a “No U-Turn” sign at the entrance to Duck Woods Drive.
4. Officially notifying both WAZE and GOOGLE Maps of plans for the no-left-turn weekends.
5. Notifying all Outer Banks rental companies about the no-left-turn weekends, with the strong suggestion that all renters be notified that they will not be permitted to turn left on to South Dogwood Trail. [The Beacon disagrees with this measure, believing there is no reason to draw attention to the cut-through route.]
6. Blanketing key locations, such as South Dogwood Trail, Hillcrest Drive, Wax Myrtle Trail, Sea Oats Trail, Juniper Trail, and Ocean Blvd (at the split next to the cell tower), with northbound traffic counters.
7. Placing unmanned blockades at Porpoise Run and Dolphin Run, with signs indicating “No Left Turn.”
8. Placing southbound vehicle counters on East Dogwood Trail at the Dick White Bridge to collect data on motorists using the Southern Shores residential area as a cut-through route when leaving the beach on Saturdays and Sundays.
9. Enacting a town ordinance covering the above points.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 6/23/20

Dare County has already reported today its 59^th COVID-19 case, a male non-resident between the ages of 18 and 24, according to the county’s Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard.

The young man has transferred to isolation in his home county, the dashboard reports.

For the first time since Dare County started keeping track of COVID-19 cases, the number of non-residents who have tested positive locally exceeds the number of residents who have, 30 to 29.

The number of males who have tested positive in Dare County is now just one shy of the number of females who have, 29 to 30.

Today’s dashboard also reports that three more Dare County residents with COVID-19 have recovered or been asymptomatically cleared. That leaves eight active cases among residents, seven of whom are in home isolation, and one of whom remains hospitalized.

The DCDHHS reported three new COVID-19 cases on Sunday and a single-day record high yesterday of nine. In light of this increase in positive tests, The Beacon will wait until the end of the day to update the local case count and case demographics.

We anticipate a DCDHHS bulletin later today about the cases that have been reported since last Friday, in particular, about how the 15 people (so far) contracted the virus.

N.C. COVID-19 UPDATE at 12:30 p.m.: For the second consecutive day, the new lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases statewide came in at less than 1,000, according to today’s N.C. Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard. The single-day positive test rate among all completed tests also improved to an acceptable 5.1 percent.

Unfortunately, the number of hospitalizations for COVID-19 statewide hit a single-day record high at 915, and 28 more people died from the virus, making total fatalities 1,251, the NCDHHS dashboard reports.

THE BEACON, 6/23/20

Dare County now reports today nine people testing positive locally for COVID-19, with the latest person being a male non-resident between the ages of 18 and 24, according to an update on the county Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard.

The young man has transferred to isolation in his home county, the dashboard reports.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Dare County now stands at 58, with 29 residents and 29 non-residents having tested positive.

Seven of today’s reported cases are non-residents, and two are residents.

We will wait until midnight before we check the DCDHHS dashboard again for reported cases of the day.

The Beacon, 6/22/20

Dare County has reported that a male resident between the ages of 25 and 49 is the 57^th person to test positive for COVID-19 in Dare, according to an update this afternoon on the county’s Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard.

That brings today’s single-day record high in confirmed COVID-19 cases locally to eight, with more than six hours left in the day. We will report new cases as they appear on the DCDHHS dashboard.

The latest person to test positive for COVID-19 is in home isolation in Dare County.

The Beacon, 6/22/19

 Seven more people have tested positive for COVID-19 locally, according to today’s Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard—six of them non-residents.

Three of the seven people are 17-year-olds, and the remaining four are between the ages of 50 and 64. Three are male, and four are female.

The one Dare County resident who tested positive is in home isolation. Three of the non-residents are also in isolation in Dare County. The remaining three non-residents have transferred to isolation in their home counties, according to the dashboard.

The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Dare County is now 56, split evenly between residents and non-residents.

Fifty-four percent of the cases have occurred in people under the age of 50. Twenty-nine percent are of people age 24 or younger.

People age 65 and older account for only 16 percent of the total cases, including the one fatality in the county.

Dr. Sheila Davies, director of the DCDHHS, will provide details on the latest 10 cases—three of which were reported yesterday—in her update tomorrow.

See The Beacon’s post from earlier today about the face-covering mandate that took effect in Dare County yesterday morning.

The Beacon, 6/22/20

The decision to start requiring the wearing of face masks or other face coverings to slow the spread of COVID-19 in Dare County was a unanimous one among the six mayors of the county’s towns, Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard stresses in a videotaped message released today that reiterates the reasoning behind the decision.

As of 9 a.m. yesterday, all people in Dare County must wear face coverings in all indoor and outdoor spaces in which six-foot social distancing cannot be maintained—subject to eight exceptions enumerated in the new emergency declaration.

Among the exceptions are “while dining in a restaurant” or when an individual has a justifiable health or religious reason for not wearing a face covering.

Children under the age of 12 also are not required to wear a covering.

According to Mr. Woodard’s message today, Dr. Sheila Davies, director of the county’s Dept. of Health and Human Services, also recommended the face-covering measure, a fact he did not previously mention.

Over the past weekend, three new cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed in Dare County, according to the DCDHHS’s dashboard, bringing the total to 49. Non-residents accounted for all three cases. (See The Beacon, 6/21/20.)

“It was clear that voluntary compliance with face covering recommendations has not been effective here in Dare County,” Mr. Woodard reiterates in today’s message, “which is why our local business owners had requested a stronger tool for compliance, for everyone’s safety.”

When Chairman Woodard met on Thursday, June 11, with the mayors of Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head, and Manteo, to discuss mandating the use of face coverings, he previously said, the officials did not reach a consensus in support of such a requirement. Instead, Mr. Woodard released a message on June 12, in which he only “strongly encouraged” face coverings. (See The Beacon, 6/13/20.)

In an amendment to Dare County’s emergency declaration for COVID-19 signed by the Chairman June 19, the face-covering mandate is specifically imposed with the “consent” of the mayors of the five shoreline towns and that of the Manteo mayor’s “designee.”

Chairman Woodard reiterates in his message today that business on the Outer Banks is “booming,” with 150,000 to 200,000 new vacationers arriving each week.

He asks Dare County residents to continue to observe the three W’s—wear, wait, and wash—“to protect yourself and others” and “to set a good example” for our visitors.

To view the Chairman’s videotaped message in its entirety, go to Dare County’s YouTube channel at youtube,com/DareCounty.

See also https://www.darenc.com/Home/Components/News/News/6370/1483

(In going back over our postings about the face-covering mandate, we discovered that we inadvertently dated Friday’s post with Saturday’s date. We have corrected that error. Friday was a busy day, folks.)

COVID-19 STATEWIDE: The number of reported new confirmed COVID-19 cases in North Carolina for today is 804. The last time a single-day total of new cases dipped below 1,000 was last Tuesday. The positive-test rate for the day is 6.9 percent, which is lower than the rates for the past three days, but not lower than the rates for each of the past seven days.

Hospitalizations statewide continue to be high, with 870 reported for today. Deaths now number 1,220.

Phase Two of North Carolina’s reopening will expire Friday at 5 p.m., and Phase Three will begin, if Governor Roy Cooper does not take action otherwise. The Governor will likely make an announcement about the expiration, and issue the necessary executive order, by mid-week.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 6/22/20

 

Three more people have tested positive in Dare County for COVID-19, all of them male non-residents, according to today’s Dare County Dept. of Health and Human Services’ dashboard.

The total number of COVID-19 cases reported in the county is now 49, of whom 22 are non-residents.

The three men who tested positive have been transferred to isolation in their home counties, according to the dashboard. All are under the age of 65: One is in the 18-24 age range; one is between ages 25 and 49, and the third is between ages 50 and 64.

Dr. Sheila Davies, director of the DCDHHS, will give details about the latest confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday.

THE BEACON, 6/21/20

 

The “appropriate resources” that the Town said in its newsletter last Friday are lacking for next weekend’s approved left-turn prohibition at U.S. Hwy. 158 and South Dogwood Trail are police resources, according to Mayor Pro Tem Elizabeth Morey, who spoke with The Beacon this afternoon.

Until Ms. Morey informed us, we were not aware that Southern Shores police officers had monitored the U.S. 158-South Dogwood Trail intersection this weekend.

The Town announced cancellation of the June 27-28 no-left-turn weekend that had been unanimously approved by the Town Council at its June 16 meeting in a newsletter item called “Updated Schedule for Southern Shores ‘No-Left Turn Events.’”

The item also said that other no-left-turn events that the Town Council has authorized for later in the summer “may . . . be subject to change.”

The Beacon questioned both the reason for the June 27-28 cancellation and the Town’s failure to explain it. We also thought that the item’s wording about change gave rise to doubts about the Town’s commitment to the three no-left-turn weekends that the Council had approved at its June 1 meeting. (See The Beacon, 6/19/20.)

As Ms. Morey explained, the Town of Kitty Hawk, which has jurisdiction over the U.S. Hwy 158-South Dogwood Trail intersection with the N.C. Dept. of Transportation, refused to sign a written memorandum of understanding with Southern Shores on the no-left-turn weekends, absent police presence.

Mayor Tom Bennett thought Kitty Hawk had given its permission, Ms. Morey said—although the Mayor did express some lingering doubt at the June 16 meeting about the neighboring town.

The Mayor had hit on the idea, the Mayor Pro Tem said–after the miserable traffic of the June 13-14 weekend–to put barrels out in the left-turn lane on U.S. Hwy. 158, but not to have a police presence, so there would be “less cost and less strain on officers.”

When the Town of Southern Shores “went to get the agreement from Kitty Hawk,” she said, “[officials there said,] ‘No, we don’t want you to do it without police out there.’”

Southern Shores Police Chief David Kole provided police oversight at the Hwy. 158-South Dogwood Trail intersection this weekend, but he has not agreed to the June 27-28 weekend. Ms. Morey did say, however, that implementing next week’s previously scheduled no-left-turn event is “not out of the question.”

Police availability is key.

If the Council believes that “it all worked pretty well this weekend,” the Mayor Pro Tem said, it may decide “maybe we can do it next week.”

The Town Council has a “commitment to do the three [other no-left-turn weekends] that we voted on,” she said, “unless something horrible happens” that would prevent them from being held. A bad accident or an injury to a police officer on the scene, she said, would be “something horrible.”

The July 4-5 no-left-turn weekend is a definite event. The other two weekends approved by the Town Council are currently scheduled for July 25-26 and Aug. 1-2. Those dates could change, the Ms. Morey said, but the Town’s commitment would not change, absent that “something horrible” or some other occurrence that would compel cancellation.

Ms. Morey also elaborated upon an increased number of vehicle counters on the route from the Wright Memorial Bridge through Duck and the sharing of vehicle-count data among the towns of Kitty Hawk, Duck, and Southern Shores.

Counters will be set up to determine the number of vehicles that enter Duck at its south end and depart Duck at its north end, as well as elsewhere on N.C. Hwy. 12, she said, giving the three towns a better idea of how many vehicles are merely passing through Dare County to vacation on the Currituck beaches.

Ann G. Sjoerdsma, 6/21/20