COVID cases decline locally; no deaths reported

Aug. 17—LUMBERTON — After weeks of a steady rise, Robeson County saw a decrease in the number of known new COVID-19 cases during the last week.

The Robeson County Health Department reported 458 new confirmed cases from Aug. 9 through Monday, down from 507 from Aug. 2-8. The decline comes after cases had increased in 14 of the previous 18 weeks, even as the rate at which cases are known by health officials has dropped due to the increased availability of at-home testing.

No new virus-related deaths were reported in Robeson County from Aug. 9 through Monday, the first reporting period since July 5-11 without at least one virus-related death; there were 10 total virus-related deaths reported in the county during that four-week stretch.

There have been 48,980 total confirmed cases and 556 virus-related deaths in Robeson County since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Cases also declined statewide, as did virus-related emergency room visits; hospitalizations remain the same. The viral load in wastewater systems, meanwhile, has increased, county Health Department Director Bill Smith said.

"Questions are asked about the reason for the wastewater surveillance to be maintained," Smith said. "It detects viral loads whether or not people are testing. An excellent example was that small pox was detected in the wastewater systems in New York before a case was identified. This helped alert health professionals who might not have thought of small pox virus being the cause of the patient's condition."

There are 61 counties in North Carolina, including Robeson and every bordering county, categorized as "orange," for high transmission, on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control's Community Transmission Map.

This comes as the CDC announced relaxed recommendations for those who have contracted the virus or been exposed, as the agency estimates 95% of the U.S. population has acquired some level of immunity, either through vaccination or infection. New guidelines include no longer recommending that exposed individuals quarantine, but that they still test and wear a mask; those who test positive can end quarantine after five days if symptoms are improving, though they should continue to wear a mask through day 10; and routine testing in K-12 schools is no longer recommended unless community transmission levels are high. Social distancing recommendations, that people should remain six feet away from each other, were also dropped.

"(The) CDC has relaxed many of its COVID recommendations to really reflect what the vast majority of the population was doing anyway," Smith said. "However, common sense acts such as masking when one is not feeling good, maintaining distances, holding events outdoors as much as possible and washing hands periodically are still in order. Because contacts do not have to quarantine, this reduces one reason employees are out of work so much. Of course, if the positive case is a child, a caretaker may still have to be out of work to care for him."

As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued for 2 1/2 years since it began in March 2020, the threat of the monkey pox virus now looms as well. While Robeson County has not had a monkey pox case identified, Smith said, there have been cases identified in neighboring Bladen and Hoke counties.