The Perry County Health Department reported a total of 74 active cases, and a seven-day rolling average of 10.6 as of Aug. 16.
This total is up from the previous week, when there were a reported 46 cases and a rolling average of 7.9 percent.
Health department director Liz House said the health department is no longer checking local hospitalization status on COVID-19 patients.
"We don't have the capacity to monitor it," she said. "It's not actively reported. That was something we had to go and search for on our own and that just took a lot of staff time. We don't have as good a handle on it now."
House said the positive cases have been through a variety of testing options, including the polymerase, antigen as well as "at home" tests.
"Active cases are people who have had some sort of positive test and are considered currently contagious," House said.
Since the pandemic began, the county has had 2,408 polymerase chain reaction cases, 75 probable antigen cases and completed 20,374 polymerase chain reaction tests.
The county has a reported 30 deaths due to COVID-19 since the pandemic began in 2020.
House believes another COVID-related death will soon be added to that number.
"It hasn't been confirmed through the state's process, but we did have Covid positive case who passed away in the hospital that we're pretty sure is going to meet the state's criteria.
House wasn't certain when the last death due to COVID-19 occurred in Perry County.
Chris Wibbenmeyer, president and CEO of Perry County Memorial Hospital, reported six individuals were hospitalized due to COVID-19 as of Aug. 18.
Several of the individuals speaking publicly at Tuesday's Perry County Health Board meeting mentioned the Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System, which is a database that monitors the number of incidents in which a person has a certain reaction to an administered vaccine.
"We're supposed to do that for every breakthrough case, and then if someone is hospitalized," she said.
House is of the belief that the area has not reached the high point yet in terms of positive cases.
"I don't think we've hit our peak yet, I think it's going to get worse before it gets better, unfortunately," House said.
Age Percent initiated Percent completed
85 and older 81.33 77.18
75-84 71.45 68.35
65-74 70.24 65.35
55-64 45.24 40.15
45-54 33.03 27.92
35-44 30.13 23.91
25-34 24.06 19.45
15-24 20.25 14.32
12-14 6.42 3.7
