Garland County’s active cases double in two weeks

The following is a news release by the Garland County COVID-19 Task Force today.

Garland County’s COVID-19 statistics are trending with the rest of the state – rising numbers of new and active cases, but no significant increases of serious illness or death, County Health Officer Dr. Gene Shelby said in a COVID-19 Task Force report on Tuesday.

The Hot Springs/Garland County COVID-19 Task Force is only meeting as needed during the summer months, but Shelby provides his weekly COVID-19 update electronically to the group.

For the week of June 12 – 19, there were 139 new cases reported, compared to the previous weeks’ 67 and 52. The number of active cases continued its rapid increase to 202, as of Monday, June 20. This was an increase of 82 active cases from last week’s 120.

“Prior to that, we were at 103, so we have doubled in just two weeks,” Shelby said. He added that “the new variants and subvariants of Omicron are highly contagious, but at this time not causing widespread serious illness.”

Representatives from CHI St. Vincent and National Park Medical Center reported having a total of nine COVID-19 patients, with four being in intensive care and one requiring ventilation.

There were no COVID-related deaths reported, so the cumulative total remained at 512.