Fayette County Public Health (FCPH) reported two additional COVID-19 related deaths — a female in her 90s and a female in her 60s — on Friday.
“We ask that you please respect the privacy of their families as they mourn the loss of their loved ones,” read a statement from FCPH.
There have now been 10 reported COVID-related deaths in Fayette County.
FCPH also reported 32 new cases of COVID-19 since Tuesday. As of Friday, 17 more individuals had recovered.
Ten individuals were hospitalized as of Friday (three fewer than the Wednesday report) and there have been 56 cumulative hospitalizations. FCPH reported a total of 78 active cases on Friday.
The Ohio Department of Health has scheduled one more COVID-19 pop-up test site for Fayette County. It will take place this Monday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Fayette County Fairgrounds, 213 Fairview Ave. in Washington C.H.
There is no cost for this test and anyone can be tested at this regional pop-up location, according to FCPH. A provider’s order is not necessary.
FCPH staff assisted Ohio National Guard members at the test site this past Monday.
Fayette County remains a “Level 3/Red” county with a high incidence of new cases, according to the state’s guidelines.
“It is our hope that testing will allow us to identify those who are ill, and slow the community spread,” FCPH said in a statement.
The United States is approaching a record for the number of new daily coronavirus cases in the latest ominous sign about the disease’s grip on the nation, as states from Connecticut to Idaho reel under the surge.
The impact is being felt in every section of the country — a lockdown starting Friday at the Ogala Sioux Tribe’s reservation in South Dakota, a plea by a Florida health official for a halt to children’s birthday parties, and an increasingly desperate situation at a hospital in northern Idaho, which is running out of space for patients and considering airlifts to Seattle or Portland, Oregon.
“We’ve essentially shut down an entire floor of our hospital. We’ve had to double rooms. We’ve bought more hospital beds,” said Dr. Robert Scoggins, a pulmonologist at the Kootenai Health hospital in Coeur d’Alene. “Our hospital is not built for a pandemic.”
Among those joining Scoggins at a meeting of northern Idaho’s Panhandle Health District was board member Walk Kirby.
“People are dying, they’re going to keep dying and catching this stuff,” Kirby said. “How many people won’t wear a mask? The same people that won’t get vaccinated for it.”
The seven-day rolling average for new daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. surpassed 61,140 Thursday, compared with 44,647 two weeks ago. The record was reached July 22 when the rolling average was 67,293 in the midst of a summer outbreak driven largely by surges of the virus in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California.
The U.S. recorded 71,671 new cases Thursday, with several states setting records across the Midwest and West.
The surge in the United States mirrors a similarly widespread spike in Europe, where Rome, Paris and other major cities are reining in nightlife as part of the increasingly drastic measures undertaken to slow the spread of the pandemic. In the Netherlands, a helicopter flew a Dutch COVID-19 patient to an intensive care unit in Germany, the first such international airlift since the pandemic first threatened to swamp Dutch hospitals in the spring.
The head of the World Health Organization warned that countries in the Northern Hemisphere are at a “critical juncture” as cases and deaths continue to rise.
“The next few months are going to be very tough and some countries are on a dangerous track,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press briefing on Friday.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
