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County has 93 cases of COVID-19 since March 26

POLK COUNTY—Polk County is closely approaching 100 cases of COVID-19.

As of Friday afternoon, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services had Polk’s count at 93 cases. Those cases have been since the first case reported on March 26 this year. There have been more than 50 of those cases presumed recovered and 4 people have died in Polk County from the virus.

Polk County has had 22 new cases reported since last Thursday. There were 14 new cases reported on Monday of this week, then another 4 on Tuesday and another 4 later in the week.

Of Polk County’s cases, 30 have been reported in the Tryon zip code; 25 in the Columbus zip code; 24 in the Saluda zip code (including all 4 deaths) and 17 in the Mill Spring zip code, according to the NCDHHS.

North Carolina had 81,331 confirmed cases as of Friday afternoon, with 1,046 hospitalizations.

The state has completed 1,150,612 tests.

Polk County’s cases per 10,000 people is much higher than some surrounding counties in western North Carolina, including the much larger Buncombe County. Polk County’s cases per 10,000 people is 45, according to the NCDHHS, compared to Buncombe County’s rate of 31; Transylvania County’s rate of 12; Haywood County’s rate of 19; Jackson County’s rate of 38; Madison County’s rate of 7; Rutherford County’s rate of 55; Henderson County’s rate of 72; McDowell County’s rate of 68; Yancey County’s rate of 30 and Mitchell County’s rate of 37.

As of Friday afternoon, Buncombe County had 802 cases and 30 deaths; Henderson County had 836 cases and 50 deaths; Rutherford County had 366 cases and 9 deaths and Transylvania County had 41 cases and 1 death, according to the NCDHHS.