Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Polk’s cases jumped by 16 cases last week

POLK COUNTY—Polk County saw its largest number of COVID-19 cases last week, with the total number of positives now at 51.

At the beginning of last week, Polk County had 35 positives and by the end of the week, that number had grown to 51, an increase of 16 cases in just a few days.

Of the total positives, 31 people are presumed recovered, so there are currently 16 active cases. There have been 4 people who have died from the virus.

Polk County is doing more frequent testing lately and LabCorp is also offering at-home test kits to be mailed in.

Polk County has completed a total of 541 tests, with 51 positives and 465 negatives. The county as of Friday had 7 tests still pending.

The county has completed a total of 114 drive-thru tests and answered 73 weekly message line calls.

Of the county’s positive tests, 62.7 percent have been female, compared to 37.3 percent male.

Most of the positive cases have been in persons 65 years of age and older, at more than 25 of the cases. There have been a little over 10 cases each in people 25-49 and 50-64, according to county data. There have also been a couple of cases in people 0-17 years of age and 18-24 in Polk County.

As of Tuesday, North Carolina had 36,484 lab-confirmed cases, with 739 patients hospitalized. The state has completed a total of 520,113 tests.

As of Tuesday, Buncombe County had 399 cases and 33 deaths; Henderson County had 375 cases and 47 deaths; Rutherford County had 197 cases and 5 deaths and Transylvania County had 16 cases and 1 death, according to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services.